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SWORDS
INTO PLOWSHARES

SWORDS INTO
PLOWSHARES

The Problems
and Progress of
International
Organization

INIS L. CLAUDE, Jr. University of Michigan
SECOND EDITION. REVISED AND ENLARGED

RANDOM HOUSE

NEW YOKE

TO SUSAN
who deserves
a better world
to grow up in

sixth rnransc, rEBRUAnr 1963
© COTYMCHT, 1956. 1959. BY IMS L. CLAUDE. J*.

Published in New York by Random House, Inc.,
and simultaneously In Toronto, Canada,
by Random House of Canada Limited
Design by Peter Oldenburg

LiDBAav or concuss catalog cam, numbeb: 59-6187
MA-NUTACTWED LN THE USrnt, STATES OS AMEa.CA

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

THREE YEARS, packed with events relevant to the develop-
ment of international organization, have elapsed since the manu-
script of this book was first consigned to the publishers. In large
part, this new edition represents an attempt to adapt the book to
the impact of those events. In undertaking this task, I had to
choose between altering the original text at a multitude of points
to give it the “made in 1958“ look, and simply adding ne%v ma-
terial. I chose the latter course; Chapter 19 has been added as a
kind of postscript, containing an analysis of the implications of
the most significant developments since late 1955. The original
text remains intact, save for minor corrections and revisions. The
judgments recorded in 1955, based on the facts of 1955, have not
been expunged, but merely supplemented. In adopting this pro-
cedure, I have expressed agreement with Walter Alison Phillips,
who wrote in the Preface to the Second Edition of his work, The
Confederation of Europe, that: "A book, if it have any vitality
at all, is always an organic whole, the product of a particular point
of view at a particular time, and the attempt to adapt it to changed
circumstances requiring a fresh outlook may easily result in de-
priving it of such permanent value as it may possess, even if this
be no more than that of a milestone marking the progress of
opinion.” Moreover, the choice reflects my conviction that the
evolutionary process of international organization has been marked
by a fundamental element of continuity. Recent changes are not
inconsistent with the earlier patterns; they represent the projec-
tion of trends and the realization of possibilities — favorable and
unfavorable — which were rooted in the situation prevailing when
my original manuscript was completed. The passing years bring
new headlines in world affairs, but the dynamics of the process

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDIT/ON

of international organization operate at a level deeper than the
surface of contemporary events. As I write, the usefulness, and
perhaps the very existence, of the United Nations is challenged
by the explosive crisis in the Middle East, but the crisis of the
moment merely reinforces the proposition, deeply embedded
among the working assumptions of our time, that international
institutions are an essential component of the equipment for the
conduct of international relations.

I have taken the opportunity provided by the issuance of a
revised edition to add a compilation of factual material concern-
ing the structure and operation of the United Nations system
(Appendix IV), as a convenience for readers who may not have
the basic information about the mechanism in the back of their
heads or at their finger tips. Additionally, I have revised the lists
of Suggested Readings to include a number of Tecent works which
I did not have at my disposal in 1955.

I am grateful to the numerous persons who have given me the
benefit of their reactions to the first edition, and particularly to
Mr. Charles D. Lieber of Random House, whose friendly counsel
and faithful support have sustained me since this enterprise was
a mere gleam in the eye.

I. L. C., Jr.

August 1, 1958

PREFACE

THE PROCESS of international organization is a significant
feature of the dynamic pattern of international relations in our
time. World affairs move in many directions at once; one of the
most persistent trends of the last century, and particularly of t he
last generation, has been the movement toward the organization
of international relations. The creation of multilateral institu-
tions has become a standard response of statesmen and peoples,
for purposes both intensely realistic and highly idealistic, to the
challenging problems and terrible dangers of international life
in an era of increasing interdependence.

In this book, I have undertaken to analyze the development
of the trend toward international organization and to examine
the problems, progress, and prospects of some of the most impor-
tant agencies in which it has found expression. I must disclaim
any intention of producing a comprchcnsise handbook of inter-
national organizations or a digest of their activities and accom-
plishments. Rather, I have felt that the time is ripe for a study
which focuses upon the theoretical bases, evolutionary trends,
constitutional problems, and major operational issues of inter-
national agencies, without the inclusion of an unwieldy mass of
detail regarding structure and function. That is what I have
attempted to provide in this volume. ] shall be happy if it pro-
motes deeper understanding and stimulates thoughtful evaluation
of the process of developing organization among nations.

There u a certain brashness about putting one's thoughts into
public prim which an author can only mitigate by making public
a< know led gment of his debts. I would mention first my wife, s*ho
fat ttorlext. nvw ffeeJewJf. httf ttnmtiftzff, w awA’ /<*«• «? z.'.v’z
ruler pi iw. 1 owe an incalculable debt to three inspiring leathers

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

viii

I have taken the opportunity provided by the issuance of a
revised edition to add a compilation of factual material concern-
ing the structure and operation of the United Nations system
(Appendix IV), as a convenience for readers who may not have
the basic information about the mechanism in the back of their
heads or at their finger tips. Additionally, 1 have revised the lists
of Suggested Readings to include a number of recent works which
I did not have at my disposal in 1955.

1 am grateful to the numerous persons who have given me the
benefit of their reactions to the first edition, and particularly to
Mr. Charles D. Lieber of Random House, whose friendly counsel
and faithful support have sustained me since this enterprise was
a mere gleam in the eye.

1. L. C., Jr.

August 1, 1958

PREFACE

THE PROCESS of international organization is a significant
feature of the dynamic pattern of international relations in our
time. World affairs move in many directions at once; one of the
most persistent trends of the last century, and particularly of the
last generation, has been the movement toward the organization
of international relations. The creation of multilateral institu-
tions has become a standard response of statesmen and peoples,
for purposes both intensely realistic and highly idealistic, to the
challenging problems and terrible dangers of international life
in an era of increasing interdependence.

In this book, I have undertaken to analyze the development
of the trend toward international organization and to examine
the problems, progress, and prospects of some of the most impor-
tant agencies in which it has found expression. I must disclaim
any intention of producing a comprchensis e handbook of inter-
national organizations or a digest of their activities and accom-
plishments. Rather, I base felt that the time is ripe for a study
which focuses upon the theoretical bases, esolutionary trends,
constitutional problems, and major operational issues of inter-
national agencies, without the inclusion of an unwieldy mass of
detail regarding structure and function. That is what I have
attempted to provide in this volume. I shall be happy if it pro-
motes deeper understanding and stimulates thoughtful evaluation
of the process of des doping organization among nations.

There is a certain brashness about putting one's thoughts Into
public print which an author can only mitigate by making public
atknow lodgment of his debts. I would mention first my wife, who
Am ftor/rtif. zrae fireArrrfy; A w matct/Arf/p, sttiti in iitit
enterprise. I owe an incalculable debt to three inspiring teachers

PREFACE

of my undergraduate days at Hendrix College — T. S. Staples,
W. C. Buthman, and R. E. Yates — who first aroused and guided
my interest in the political affairs of men and nations. I am grate-
ful to my colleagues at Harvard University and to fellow stu-
dents of international affairs elsewhere — notably Robert H. Cory,
Lawrence H. Fuchs, Henry C. Galant, A. Burr Overstreet, and
John G. Stoessinger — for the generous sharing of knowledge and
tolerant discussion of disagreements which have done much to
shape my own viewpoints. Special thanks are due to Walter F.
Cronin, Rupert Emerson, and Payson S. Wild, who Tead parts
of the manuscript and gave me the benefit of their valued judg-
ments, without — I hasten to add — incurring any responsibility
for the view expressed herein. Finally, I am indebted to my
students at Harvard and Radcliffe, who have either taught me
or forced me to learn most of what is contained in my modest
treasury of understanding of the intriguing, complex, and impor-
tant field of international organization.

I. L. C., Jr.
August 1, 1955

CONTENTS

PREPACK TO THE SECOND EDITION • Vti

PREFACE v ix

chapter 1 Introduction 3 '

Approaches to the Study of International Organization 5

The Nature of International Organization 9

The Basic Assumption of International Organization IS

Historical Backgrounds of
Contemporary International Organization

chapter 2 The Development of International Organization in the

Nineteenth Century 19

The Concert of Europe 25

The Hague System 28

The Public International Unions S5

Conclusion 40

CHAPTER 3 The Establishment of the League of Nations 43

Sources of the League 44

The Nature of the League 59

chapter 4 The Origins of the United Nations System 62

Sources of the United Nations 6t>

The Nature of the United Nations 71

Constitutional Problems of
International Organization

CONTENTS

chapter 5 The Problem of Membership 93

The Nature of International Constitutional Problem* 93

Membership as a Constitutional Problem 55

Membership in the League 96

Membership in the United Nations 99

chapter 6 The Problem of Regionalism HI

The Theory of Regionalism HI

Regionalism and the United Nations 120

chapter 7 The Problem of Voting 126

The Development of International Majoritarianism 128

The Merits of International Majoritarianism 132

chapter 8 The Veto Problem in the United Nations 142

The Adoption of the Veto Rule 144

The Veto in Practice 151

chapter 9 Problems of Constitutional Interpretation and Develop-
ment 158

Evolution of the Charter 159

The Changing Role of the General Assembly 179

Domestic Jurisdiction and International Competence 181

chapter 10 The Problem of the International Secretariat 193

The Problem of Efficient Administration 198

The Problem of Allegiance 202

The Problem of Political Initiative 211

Approaches to Peace Through
International Organization

chapter 11 Peaceful Settlement of Disputes 219

The Causes of War and the Conditions of Peace 219

CONTENTS

Pacific Settlement at an Approach to Peace 222

The Results of Pacific Settlement Devices 234

chapter 12 Collective Security as an Approach to Peace 250

The Theory of Collective Security 255

Subjective Requirements of Collective Security 257

Objective Requirements of Collective Security 264

Collective Security and International Organization 269

The Practicability of Collective Security 270

The Desirability of Collective Security 285

Conclusion 292

chapter 13 Disarmament as an Approach to Peace 295

The Theory of Disarmament 296

International Organization and the Disarmament Movement 302
The Problem ol International Atomic Control 309

chapter 14 The Grand Debate Approach to Peace 324

The Values of the Crand Debate 325

The Dangers of the Grand Debate 335

chapter 15 Trusteeship as an Approach to Peace 341

The Theory of Trusteeship 341

Trusteeship and the League 346

Trusteeship and the United Nations 351

chapter 16 The Functional Approach to Peace 373

The Theory ol Functionalism 374

Evaluation of Functional Theory 382

The Practice of Functionalism 387

Evaluation of Functional Practice 392

The Future of World Order

chapter 17 World Government and World Order 407

The Movement for World Government 407

live Question of Practical Attainability 4 1 1

The Question of Theoretical Validity 418

CONTENTS

XIV

chapter 18 International Organization and World Order 43 J

The Progress of International Organization 435

The Prospects of International Organization 445

chapter 19 Developments in International Organization, 1955-1958 451

Appendixes

appendix I The Covenant of the League of Nations 475

appendix II The Charter of the United Nations 465

appendix III The North Atlantic Treaty 512

appendix IV Basic Information About the United Nations System 515
INDEX 533

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER

Introduction

“One World” is in some respects an ideal and an aspiration,
born of modern interpretations of ancient moral insights and of
rational estimates of the requirements for human survival: it is
in other respects a pressing reality, an actual condition of man-
kind, produced by a century of change which has tied all the
peoples of the earth together in an unprecedented intimacy of
contact, interdependence of welfare, and mutuality of vulner-
ability, Whether or not we obey the religious injunction to
behave like brothers, or attain the ethical objective of a peaceful
world community, we human beings cannot escape the hard fact
that all of us are, as John Donne put it, “involved in Mankinde.”
Given the existence of One World defined as a set of objective
conditions, disaster may be the price of failure to achieve One
World defined in terms of a moral and political ideal.

Sincere and sensible men may differ as to how much and what
kind of world unity is possible and desirable, how it can or should
be achieved, and how quickly it is likely to be or ought to be
attempted. These are important questions, and some attention
will be devoted to them in this book. However, we are not simply
confronted with a debate about hypothetical possibilities for the
future. The growing complexity of international relations has
already produced international organizations; the world is en-
gaged in the process of organizing. This process has a past which
is not very long, as historians measure time, but which is none-
theless significant. It has a present which is confused and troubled.

SWORDS INTO plows:

RES

but which is not for that reason less important as an object of
study. And, it may be confidently asserted, if man has a future,
so has the process of international organization.

The present state of international organization, representing
an attempt to adapt the institutions, procedures, and rules of
international relations to the conditions of international inter-
dependence, is far from satisfactory. But though much is lacking
in international organizations, there is no lack of such agencies.
Well over a hundred public international organizations, having
states as their members, are in existence today, not to speak of a
much greater number of nongovernmental organizations, com-
posed of private citizens or groups in various countries. Indeed,
the proliferation of such bodies has produced an International
Union of International Associations, with headquarters in Brus-
sels. International agencies vary greatly in size and scope, in
structure, and in the ambitiousness of their programs. The
amazing variety of the subjects with which international organiza-
tions have dealt may be illustrated by referring to such names as
the International Congress on Vineyards and Wine, the Inte*-
national Commission of the Cape Spartel Light, the International
Whaling Commission, and the Permanent Central Opium Board.
Nations have joined together for such minor and specialized
purposes as those of the Central Bureau of the International Map.
of the World on the Millionth Scale, and for such fundamental
and far-reaching aims as those pursued by the United Nations.
It cannot be emphasized too strongly that the organization of
international affairs is not just a gleam in the eyes of idealists, to
be judged in terms of its acceptability or feasibility as an ideal,
but it is a process under way, to be studied with a view to under-
standing its causes and effects, its progress and limitations, its
problems and prospects.

International organization is a process; international organiza-
tions are representative aspects of the phase of that process which
has been reached at a given time. This is a book about interna-
tional organization, based primarily upon an analysis of the
organizational efforts in which governments participate as the
official" agencies of states. Thus, the realm occupied by nongovern-
mental organizations is largely excluded from its scope. It is a
selective study, not a comprehensive digest, but its time range

JNTRODUCTION

includes past, present, and possible future developments. It is
written in the conviction that international organizations, as
institutions, have a double significance: they are important,
though not decisively important, factors in contemporary world
affairs; and they are significant expressions of, and contributors to,
the process of international organization, which may ultimately
prove to be the most significant dynamic element in the devel-
oping reality of international relations.

Approaches to the Study of International Organization

Serious scholarship in the field of international organization is
a relatively new enterprise, and the pioneer writers and teachers
in this field have tended to approach the subject in a manner
largely determined by the professional techniques and specialized
emphases characteristic of the older and better established disci-
plines in which they have been trained. Thus, international
lawyers have tended to treat the study of international organiza-
tion as an exercise in rigorous analysis of the multilateral treaties
which serve as the constitutional foundations of international
agencies. Students of comparative governmental institutions have
considered international organizations as sets of machinery, to be
examined in terms of their structural and procedural characteris-
tics. Specialists in world politics have focused on the role of
international organizations in power conflicts and in the balancing
process. Scholars with a sociological orientation have looked upon
international organization as a phase of the secular community-
building process, regarding its institutions as outward expressions
of the nature of the world social situation and as instruments for
influencing the development of basic patterns of human social
behavior. These are all valid and useful approaches to the study
of international organization, although too nearly exclusive re-
liance upon any one of them may result in failure to do justice
to the complexities of the subject.

This book represents an effort to apply to the study of inter-
national organization a variety of approaches which have rele-
vance and importance for understanding and evaluating develop-
ments in this field.

The historical approach is important first of all for the obvious

6 iwnam into m.owih»«H

reason that die present cannot l>c adequately tsndeistnod. nor
(mure prospects reasonably asset ted, without a grasp «>f the tend-
encies and continuities which emerge irom tlie past, T.sen so, it U
well to lie aware of the fact that in this field, as in others. the
advantages of "learning Irom history’* are somesihat offset l<y the
perils of being "blinded by history.*' Hut an historical entplum
lias an even more important fmution in this field of study: mete
recognition of the fact that international nrginiration ha i a his-

tory senes significantly to dispel the notion that romnnjxirary
international institutions are simply gadgets, arbitrarily contused
devices to deal with current problems, ami to drise borne the
point that international organization it a characteristic phenome-
non of the modem state system, an organic development rooted
in the realities and conforming to the necessities of international
relations. A sound uudetttanding of historical loclgrounds puts
m on notice that, whatever the hade policy questions to l*" de-
cided in our time may be, they do not include the question. "Shall
we have international organization?*' International organization
11 a (ltiunctive modem phaie of world politics; it it a recent
grow tli, but it bat l>ccome an establidied item!. International or-
ganizations may come and go. but international organization is
here to stay. Tlie collapse of the l-rague of Nations led almost
automatically to consideration ot the question of what hind of
international organization should next l>c attempted, and similar
failure by the United Nations might lie cxjsectcd to produce the
same reaction. Historical analysis is required to establish and
explain the fact that international organization has Ixcomc a
necessary part of the system for dealing with international prob-
lems, and that "to organize or not to organize'* is no longer an
open question for statesmen of our time.

The theoretical approach, too often neglected in this field, is
given substantial emphasis in this I>ooh. A well-established body
of political theory has Jong provided guide posts and points of
reference for the study of national government and politics, but
the relevance of this theoretical material for international organi-
zation has not been adequately explored, nor has sufficient atten-
tion been given to the possibility of elaborating a special body of
theory to serve as a framework for the study of international or-
ganization. It is true that the development of international organ-

INTRODUCTION

ization has been marked by a strong pragmatic bent, and that this
tendency has been a healthy one for the early and tentative stages.
Nevertheless, the time has come when it would be useful to make
explicit, and thus subject to critical evaluation, the unarticulated
assumptions which have in fact served as the theoretical under-
pinnings of experiments in international organization. In addi-
tion, the theoretical approach has the merit of pointing up the
relationship between international organization and other devel-
opments and problem areas in the general field of social studies.
International organization is not an isolated phenomenon, but
part of a general context; its foundations are embedded in the
same theoretical stratum which supports other modern economic,
social, and political developments. Thus, the theoretical approach
may have the value of demonstrating the connection between
the process of international organization and other things that
are going on in the affairs of man-in-society, just as the historical
approach clarifies the relationship between that process and the
evolution of international relations.

A strong political emphasis pervades the treatment of inter-
national organization in this book. Legal and structural analysis
of institutions is indispensable, but it contributes little to under-
standing unless international organization is placed squarely in
the political context where it operates. One can leam something
about his automobile by studying the blueprints, and something
more by peering under the hood at its parts, but real under-
standing comes with checking its behavior in traffic. Similarly, in-
ternational organization must be considered in terms of its insepa-
rability from the political forces and trends of the time — the
configuration of power, the impact of technological developments,
the sweep of political unrest, the urge for political stability, the
drives for domination, the clashes of interests and of ideologies.
International organization is a product of international politics,
which largely determines its shape and the course of its develop-
ment. On the other hand, there is a mutuality of interaction, with
international organization becoming a factor influencing the
course of international politics. There is real danger in concen-
trating too heavily on the constitutional documents and format
structural arrangements of international agencies. Their actual
operations can only be understood with reference to the world of

g SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

politics, and their ultimate results can be properly evaluated only
in terms of their impact upon that world.

Finally, it is recognized in this book that the problem of build-
ing effective international organizations is ultimately the prob-
lem of building a world community. This task involves more
than devising foolproof legal structures or ingenious mechanical
devices; it involves working on the underlying factors which shape
international politics — the loyalties, values, prejudices, fears,
hopes, and expectations of human beings. International organiza-
tion is concerned with sociological problems on a grand scale. If
the creation of individual life is the great mystery of biology, the
creation of social life is the great mystery of sociology. We know
that community-building takes place, but our knowledge of the
process is not sufficient to enable us to produce by artificial means
the unit of human cohesion which international organization re-
quires as its basis. Thus, the study of international organization
carries us to the frontiers of social exploration.

The purpose of this book is to promote the careful examina-
tion and intelligent understanding of international organization.
The analysis will necessarily be inconclusive, but we can hope at
least for a limited understanding of why international organiza-
tion today is what it is, of why it is not what it is not, and of what
factors will determine what international organization can do in
our time and may do — and may become — in the future. This will
require a critical analysis of the problems, limitations, failures,
and inadequacies of international organization, as well as its
growth and achievements.

The realization of the above purpose requires the devotion of
serious attention to a multitude of relatively unspectacular issues
and problems, and resistance to the temptation to concentrate too
exclusively upon the big, basic, fundamental questions about in-
ternational organization. Contemporary discussion of the United
Nations tends to be dominated by excessive passion for reopening
the question of its basic design, for dealing first, last, and always
with such exciting Great Issues as whether the veto can be abol-
ished or world federation should be introduced. The wisdom of
this approach is questionable. A wise President of the United
States does not spend his time pondering about whether we

INTRODUCTION

ought to adopt the British cabinet system of government, or sub-
stitute a unitary for the federal system, or discard the principle
of a written constitution, or abolish the Senate; rather, he accepts
the basic arrangements as they stand, assumes the need to make
our government work as well as possible within its established
framework, and focuses on the problems at hand. Students of
international organization might do well to devote less energy to
thinking about whether the United Nations is a suitable institu-
tion and more to considering what we can do with, and make of,
the international agencies we now have. This is not to encourage
complacency or the belief that more advanced forms of inter-
national organization cannot and should not be developed; it is
to encourage the bestowal of something better than a contemptu-
ous sneer upon the problems which exist within the present con-
text of international organization. In this field, daring speculation
directed toward the future is no substitute for patient analysis of
the past and present, or adventurous idealism concerning gran-
diose possibilities for sober awareness of mundane realities.

The Nature of International Organization

Considered primarily in terms of its purposes, international
organization may be said to exhibit a basically dualistic nature.

On the one hand, it may be regarded as a means for making
the modern state system function more satisfactorily. From this
point of view, international organization is set within the context
of the multistate system; it accepts the sovereign state as the basic
entity of world political life; it does not purport to create a super-
government, destroying the sovereignty of states and taking over
the functions of their governments. Instead, it provides mod-
ernized methods to supplement and in some measure to replace
old ways of conducting interstate relations, new agencies for stim-
ulating and facilitating voluntary cooperation of states and har-
monization of their policies, improved channels for negotiation,
and a more adequately organized framework for diplomacy. In
this view, international organization represents nothing more
revolutionary than an agreement of states to engage in regular
consultation under set conditions and to establish machinery for

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARE!

the implementation of their joint decisions. Thus, it is a move-
ment for reform, for modification, for adaptation of the multi-
state system to the requirements of international life in our time.

In contrast, international organization may be looked upon as
a process of initiating steps in the direction of world government,
of realizing the ageless aspiration for human brotherhood by
transcending the national state system and substituting a funda-
mentally new system. In this interpretation, existing international
agencies are intended not so much to assist states in solving the
current problems of their common existence as to promote the
development of more advanced types of world institutions. They
are imperfect and inadequate — Model T devices to replace horse-
and-buggy devices for dealing with the problems of a jet-propelled
world— but they represent the necessary first stages of a movement
toward a revolutionary advance in the management of human
affairs.

Both these views have some validity. Existing agencies serve as
aids in the conduct of international relations by the component
parts of the traditional state system, and at the same time they
exercise some measure of authority and function which is essen-
tially governmental in nature. International organization owes its
dualistic nature to the fact that it is a product of both realistic
statesmen and idealistic dreamers.

This situation carries within it the seeds of conflict. Statesmen,
by and large, are devoted to the first conception of the nature of
international organization. In creating the United Nations, they
meant that it should be an instrument for promoting national
interests and purposes, including that of making it possible for the
multistate system to operate tolerably well. Tell a United States
Senator that the United Nations assists our sovereign nation in
conducting its affairs in the modem world, and he may support
it; tell him that it is a first step toward the elimination of national
sovereignties, and he is likely to show hostility. On the other hand,
many internationalists, including some of those persons who are
attracted, to the civil service of the United Nations and its affili-
ated agencies, support contemporary international bodies pri-
marily because of the hunch and the hope that such agencies may
in the long run undermine the national state system and con-

INTRODUCTION

tribute to the building of world government. These people tend
to think that international agencies should be forerunners of
world governmental institutions, and hope that that is what they
are.

Thus, international organization has created strange bedfellows,
supporters whose conceptions of the actual and proper nature of
international agencies are at variance. The truce between these
two groups is an uneasy one. Statesmen, oriented toward the
maintenance of sovereign states, hold the upper hand, for they
control the very existence of international agencies. But they can
hardly have the kind of agencies which they want and desperately
need for their purposes without relying upon the support and
service of individuals who are likely to entertain the hope that
those agencies will develop into instruments of a world order
based on a global unity which will transcend the divisive prin-
ciple of national sovereignty.

This introduces the question of the potentialities of the United
Nations. What may it become? What changes in the organization
of international life is it likely to produce?

Again, we find two ways of looking at the “problem of becom-
ing.” The first might be characterized as the "seed” approach. A
seed contains within itself a fixed pattern of potential develop-
ment and forces of growth. Thus, an acorn may become an oak
tree; it may, of course, die and become nothing: but if it becomes
anything at all, it will become an oak tree, not an elm tree or a
grape vine. Following this analogy, there are those who look at
the United Nations itself, seeking to discover its inherent poten-
tialities — rudimentary principles which may become dominant in
a new and different world system, new ideas capable of growth,
new forces capable of extension. Thus, they may conceive of the
General Assembly as a potential world parliament, and the Inter-
national Court of Justice as the world supreme court of the fu-
ture. As one early analyst of the postwar organization put it:
the potentiality of the world state is Inherent in the United Nations.
When I say that it is inherent, I mean that this is the end and the
logic according to which the United Nations must evolve i£ they
are to evolve at all toward an enduring world order. The world
state is inherent in the United Nations as an oak tree is in an acorn.

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARE!

the implementation of their joint decisions. Thus, it is a move-
ment for reform, for modification, for adaptation of the multi-
state system to the requirements of international life in our time.

In contrast, international organization may be looked upon as
a process of initiating steps in the direction of world government,
of realizing the ageless aspiration for human brotherhood by
transcending the national state system and substituting a funda-
mentally new system. In this interpretation, existing international
agencies are intended not so much to assist states in solving the
current problems of their common existence as to promote the
development of more advanced types of world institutions. They
are imperfect and inadequate — -Model T devices to replace horse-
and-buggy devices for dealing with the problems of a jet-propelled
world — but they represent the necessary first stages of a movement
toward a revolutionary advance in the management of human
affairs.

This situation carries within it the seeds of conflict. Statesmen,
by and large, are devoted to the first conception of the nature of
international organization. In creating the United Nations, they
meant that it should be an instrument for promoting national
interests and purposes, including that of making it possible for the
multistate system to operate tolerably well. Tell a United States
Senator that the United Nations assists our sovereign nation in
conducting its affairs in the modern world, and he may support
it,* tell him that it is a first step toward the elimination of national
- sovereignties, and he is likely to show hostility. On the other hand,
many internationalists, including some of those persons who are
attracted. to the civil service of the United Nations and its affili-
ated agencies, support contemporary international bodies pri-
marily because of the hunch and the hope that such agencies may
in the long run undermine the national state system and con-

INTRODUCTION 11

tribute to the building of world government. These people tend
to think that international agencies should be forerunners of
world governmental institutions, and hope that that is what they
are.

This introduces the question of the potentialities oE the United
Nations. What may it become? What changes in the organization
of international life is it likely to produce?

Again, we find two ways of looking at the "problem of becom-
ing.” The first might be characterized as the "seed” approach. A
seed contains within itself a fixed pattern of potential develop-
ment and forces of growth. Thus, an acorn may become an oak
tree; it may, of course, die and become nothing; but if it becomes
anything at all, it will become an oak tree, not an elm tree or a
grape vine. Following this analogy, there are those who look at
the United Nations itself, seeking to discover its inherent poten-
tialities — rudimentary principles which may become dominant in
a new and different world system, new ideas capable of growth,
new forces capable of extension. Thus, they may conceive of the
General Assembly as a potential world parliament, and the Inter-
national Court of Justice as the world supreme court of the fu-
ture. As one early analyst of the postwar organization put it:

the potentiality of the world state is inherent in the United Nations.
When I say that it is inherent, I mean that this is the end and the
logic according to which the United Nations must evolve if they
are to evolve at all toward an enduring world order. The world
state is inherent in the United Nations as an oak tree is in an acorn.

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

... In this sense, not another League of Nations but a world state,
in the exact meaning of the term, is inherent and potential in the
embryonic organism of the United Nations . 1

This view stresses historical perspective, and accepts the applica-
tion of the concept of organic evolution to human institutions.
Those who adopt this theory may view the prospects with favor
or with alarm, but they are agreed that the clue to future develop-
ment lies in the institutions of the present.

The second approach to the problem of becoming might be
described as the "building” theory. A building has no inexorable
pattern of growth; it can be made and remade according to the
desires of its builders and users. Within limits, a given foundation
can be used to support different types of buildings. An existing
structure can be left the same or remodeled; new rooms may be
added or old parts tom away. Following this analogy, some ob-
servers emphasize the intentions, desires, and policies of the states
whose property the United Nations is, rather than its own in-
herent qualities, as the determining factors in its future develop-
ment. From this point of view, what the United Nations will be-
come depends not upon what kind of seed it is, but upon what
kind of building is wanted; its future depends upon what its
members, especially the more powerful ones, wish it to become,
allow it to become, and force it to become.

The first theory is essentially organismic and deterministic; the
second is pragmatic and voluntaristic. Neither is entirely ade-
quate. The latter theory, however, contributes more to an under-
standing of international organization. The development of the
United Nations will be primarily determined by the conditions
of the world political scene and the policies of governments; it
will become what human beings make it become — not something
that it must become because it is what it is.

Nevertheless, this view must be qualified by recognition of the
fact that human institutions do some times and to some extent
evolve in unwilled directions, violating the intentions and con-
founding the expectations of their founders. The Founding Fa-
thers of the United States did not entirely know what they were

' Wl '* er Lippraann, "International Control of Atomic Energy," in Dexter Mas-
~ W *J- '*• ° nt or Kont (New York: McCraw Hill.

ist6>. P- 74 ’ Copyright. 1946, McGraw-Hill Book Company. Inc

INTRODUCTION

doing; our government has become something which they could
not have predicted or intended and might not have approved.
Similarly, the United Nations may become something which the
statesmen of San Francisco, the state-oriented men of 1945, did
not consciously intend.

Students of the United Nations should keep one eye on its
inherent potentialities and the other on the political, ideological,
psychological, technological, and economic conditions which will
determine whether it lives at all and largely determine its nature
if it does live and carry on the process of becoming.

The Basic Assumption of International Organization

However much men may differ as to the purposes which inter-
national organization should pursue or the manner of estimating
its future prospects, it is clear that international organization as
we know it rests upon a distinctive basic assumption about the
nature of international politics. This assumption may be stated
as both a denial and an affirmation.

International organization implies rejection of the idea that
men and governments, in the era of the multistate system, are
bound by inexorable laws which inhere in that system. This posi-
tion contrasts with that of two groups of thinkers about inter-
national relations: the self-styled "realists” of the power politics
school, and the champions of world government.

These groups, which come to very different conclusions and rec-
ommendations, share the basic contention that men-divided-into-
states must inevitably clash. States enmeshed in a multistate sys-
tem are driven inexorably by the laws of the system into a limit-
less struggle for dominance, a violent competition for power.
Thus, Frederick L. Schuman has written that:

Whenever two or more States, each "sovereign” and “independent"
of others, confront one another . . . their relations will tend to be
dominated by a competitive quest for power and by calculations of
relative power.

Every State in a sjstem, precisely because it is a State in a system,
seeks to extend its power over all others in its quest for security or
empire.

I WORD* INTO PLOWSHARES

What is not justified ... is the assumption that it is within the
capacity of men to make right rather than might the test of state-
craft in a system of competing sovereigns. 1

Having started out together, these two groups go of! in different
directions. Exponents of the power politics line accept the multi-
state system, with its assumed laws of inevitable clash, as given,
and advise statesmen to be realistic practitioners of the arts of
national survival in the nastiest of all possible worlds. World gov-
cmmentalists, agreeing that the laws of the system are fatally in-
compatible with any hope for decent relations among states, advise
instead that it is possible and necessary to leap over the wall of
the multistatc system, entering into a new kind of world in which
the old laws do not prohibit the achievement of peace and order.
What they have in common is the fundamental belief that, within
the framework of the existing state system, conflict and chaos are
the ordained lot of mankind.

In rejecting this doctrinaire determinism, theorists of inter-
national organization repudiate both the pessimistic conclusions
of the power politicians and the apocalyptic visions of believers
in world government. International organization has been built,
consciously or not. upon the assumption that nations are not
prisoners of destiny but reasonably free agents. Its theory is that
the relationships of states can be modified, even while the present
system remains unchanged in its fundamentals. This constitutes
an affirmation that men arc in fact free, in the here and now. to
formulate and pursue objectives relevant to international Tela-
tions. Some believers in international organization envisage the
ultimate transcending of the national state system, whereas others
look, to the development of a tolerable pattern of relations with-
out systemic transformation; what unites them is the conviction
that men, organized in states, are confronted with a malleable
international system. Thus, international organization reflects the
view that it makes sense to hope and try for gradual reform of
state behavior.

This fundamental aspect of the theory of international organi-
zation serves not only to distinguish it from other ways of looking
at the problem of international relations, but also to identify its

■ The Commonwealth of Man (New Yotl: Knopf. 1952) , pp. 22. SO. S8.

INTRODUCTION 15

relationship to other theoretical positions in the general field of
socio-political thought. The controversy concerning the limits of
determinism and freedom is not limited to the theoretical realm
of international relations.

There is a basic philosophical affinity between the movements
for modifying international relations by international organiza-
tion and for reforming economic and social relations by the po-
litical means of democracy, which suggests the need for a redefini-
tion of that much used and abused term, liberalism. The essential
concept of liberalism is the postulate that men are not inexorably
constrained by the laws of a social system — that however com-
pelling may be the restraints and determinants imposed by the
structure of the arena within which they operate, men yet retain
the possibility of empirical maneuvering within the limits of the
system and perhaps of achieving the ultimate transformation of
the system. In these terms, liberalism is not so much a doctrine
committed to the advocacy of freedom as a doctrine based upon
the conviction of the reality of freedom for man in the social
universe.

International organization is clearly the typical expression of
liberalism, thus defined, in the realm of international relations.
Its philosophical assumptions have seldom been dearly articu-
lated, but it is obvious that international organization makes sense
only if it is assumed that there exists an area of freedom for action
within the confines of the multistate system. The fundamental
nature of this assumption was indicated by Dag Hammarskjold,
the second Secretary-General of the United Nations, when he
called for “a firm faith in the caparity of men and governments
to have the common sense to find their way out of the awful laby-
rinth of seemingly irreconcilable conflicts and insoluble problems
in which we are now wandering ." 3 International organization
rests upon the belief that man is at liberty, not only to surrender
to the operation of the iron laws of the system, or to attempt an
apocalyptic leap from an era of determinism into an era of free-
dom, but to shape his collective destiny in the here and now.

This belief may be in error. Certainly there is no guarantee
that international organization will be successful. It is easy to
exaggerate the progress that has been made; supporters of inter-

‘ United Nations Bulletin , May 1. 1954, p 553.

16 SWORD* INTO PLOWSHARES

national organization are often tempted 10 take too seriously the
ostensible gains that exist only on paper — the fine words of con-
stitutional documents, the noble sentiments of United Nations
resolutions. But it is equally easy — and perilous — to adopt a
pessimism which refuses to recognize the advances that have been
made and denies the hypothesis that a meaningful opportunity
exists for gradual taming of power, harmonizing of interests, and
building of allegiance to the ideal of a world fit for human life.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Rrtnton, Crane, From Many One, Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1948.

Levi, Werner, Fundamentals of World Organization, Minneapolis:

University of Minnesota Press, 1950.

Russell, Frank M„ Theories of International Relations, New York:
Appleton Century-Crofts, 1936.

Schiffer, Walter, The Legal Community of Mankind, New York: Co
lumbia University Press, 1954.

HISTORICAL
BACKGROUNDS
OF CONTEMPORARY
INTERNATIONAL
ORGANIZATION

*»X«-

CHAPTER

The Development of
International Organization
in the Nineteenth Century

International organization— winch ought, strictly speaking, to
be called inlerriote organization— is a phenomenon of the multi-
state system. There are, in fact, four prerequisites for the develop-
ment of international organization. The first two relate to tl
existence of objective facts or conditions: the world must be di-
vided into a number of states which function as mdependen
political units, and a substantial measure of contact must exist
between these subdivisions. Tile other requirements are subjective
in nature: the stales must develop an awareness of t ic pro c
which arise out of their coexistence, and. on this basis, come t
recognize the need for creation of institutional devices and sys-
tematic methods for regulating their relations with each other.
Thus, the setting of the stage for international organization in-
volves the development ot the fecit of division and interdepend-
ence in the external world, and of the moodi of anxiety and dis-
satisfaction. coupled with l.opeful determination and creative
imagination, in the minds of men.

1. wa, in the nineteenth century that these tom l*e>*q“**«”
*cre unified in sufficient measure and in proper com in

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION, 19TH CENTURY

who was .hat jolt-head that did subscribe or ratify a
the attaching of such a knight a. 1 an,? Who was he that too s no
how knights errant are exempted from all tribunals? and how ■
their sword is the law. their valour the bench, and dtc wi ls the
statutes of their courts? I say again, what madman was he that

knows not how that no privilege of gentry enjoy v n ight-

eminences, immunities, and exemptions as that » hl * a ^
errant acquires the day wherein he is dubbed and undertakes the
rigorous exercise o£ arms? 1

In its original context, sovereignty denoted the
out accountability which was the attribute of monar ,
was shifted, but its essential nature was not a tere ’ - sm

archy began to share the international stage wit “-P c j aim

and abstract entities called national states appeare ' re j a .

to act with a free hand in both internal affairs and external^
tions. The theoretical pretensions of J. developed

absolute. Doctrines of international legal o *® .. and the

simultaneously with notions of sovereign irr“P . j j w to
nineteenth century inherited a "''Xtorimperlal

which sovereigns, whether they were perso - n the pac k:

states, were presumably subject. But there w j was itself

the international law which was to contro sov ineffec-

controlled by them. The law was by no means co P ^ {ar ^
tive in civilizing the relations of sovereign en i ’ tions< but
they recognized common interests and Teciproc their own

it tended primarily to reflect their preoccupa 1 an j nter .

right, and statu, and dignity. It was ® dgm, should

national legal system, shaped and contro 1 y f sov .

have served the major function of ratifying the lhc

ereignty. sanctifying the rights of sovereigns, a ^ ^ intema-
wresponsibility of sovereigns. The major e obligations

Uonal legal system was not that it failed to e preten-

of sovereign states but that it conceded too much to their P
dons and claims of rights and privileges. translated the

The traditional system of internationa . nal principle

theoretical concept of sovereignty into the ^ ^ ^

■non Quixote of the Mancha, transUted by j ^*45";

• The Harvard Classics (New Yolk: Collier. 190 ).

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

bring about the birth of modem international organization. The
multistate system can be traced back to the earlier breakup of the
unity of medieval European Christendom, and historical reference
may be made to such significant landmarks in its development
as the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 and the Treaty of Utrecht in
1713. However, it remained for the nineteenth century to bring
about the combination of the continuing proliferation and solidi-
fication of states, particularly under the impact of growing na-
tionalism, and the emergence of a pattern of technologically-based
contacts, unprecedented in range and intensity, which made the
world situation ready for international organization.

At the same time, men were becoming ready for international
organization, although their psychological preparation was much
less complete than the preparation which had taken place in the
conditions of the external world. The problem of war forced its
way to the forefront of men’s attention. It became increasingly
apparent that military activity could no longer be regarded as
a kind of professional sport, sponsored by royal patrons, but that
it had become a menace to the welfare and happiness of humanity.
It was also evident that the conditions of interdependence, grow-
ing out of phenomenal advances in transport, communication, and
industrialism, had created complex problems which could not be
solved, and great new possibilities which could not be realized,
without changes in the management of international affairs.

Recognition of the complication of problems, the intensification
of evils, and the attainability of unparalleled benefits was a neces-
sary step toward awareness of the inadequacies of the established
principles and methods of international relations. The multistate
system, as it had developed up to the nineteenth century, was
characterized by the doctrinal principle of sovereignty and the
conelative institutional principle of decentralization.

Sovereignly has meant many things to many men, and it has
been the subject of much learned discourse and disputation 3 nd
of a great deal of hair-splitting, who's-got-the-thimble, how-many-
angels-on-the-point-of-a needle type of analysis. It suffices here to
describe sovereignty as a principle of irresponsibility. Cervantes
described it as well as legal or political philosophers when he had
Don Quixote ask:

SWORDS INTO HO'

HARES

of decentralization. In the operation of the system, the key word
was self: self-limitation, self-judgment, self-help of states. The
community had no central governing institutions, and no author-
ity to impose central direction or control upon sovereign states.
The Jaw consisted of obligations which states imposed upon them-
selves; states served as judges in their own causes; states enjoyed
a legal right to the arbitrary use of force. The theoretical pre-
dominance of sovereignty meant the operative predominance of
unilateralism, qualified primarily by the techniques of diplomacy.

It was this sort of multistate system which was recognized as
inadequate under the conditions of international life as they de-
veloped In the nineteenth century. The movement toward inter-
national organization reflected the conviction that it had become
necessary and possible to modify the free-wheeling irresponsibility
of sovereign states to a greater extent than had been done under
traditional international law, and to remedy the international in-
stitutional vacuum by creating and putting to work some agencies
which would serve the community of states as a whole.

This is not to say that drastic revision of the international sys-
tem was contemplated or accomplished during the nineteenth
century. No iconoclastic reaction to the sacred principle of sov-
ereignty developed, and no concerted effort to substitute a fully
elaborated and authoritative set of community institutions for
the decentralized system of international relations was envisaged.
It was true that the nineteenth century inherited, and added to,
a venerable tradition of speculative projects for peace and order
through unity on a world or European scale, produced by such
men as Dame, Pierre Dubois, Emeric Cruc£, the Due de Sully,
William Penn, the Abb£ de Saint-Pierre, Rousseau, Bentham, and
Kant.* These various utopian schemes, which had appeared in a
steady procession from the fourteenth century, had never reflected
or appealed to a strong sense of current need, nor did they in
•he nineteenth century. Far from repudiating the principle of
separate and independent sovereignties, the world of the nine-
teenth century continued the glorification of that concept and
insisted upon its eternal rightness, while it reacted to the aware-
ness of new necessities by undertaking to achieve working re-

•See S J. Ucmkbrn. Plant / or World peace Through Six Centuries fChicaeo:
Univmity of Chicago frai, 1915) . v B

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION, 19tH CENTURY 23

straints and functional innovations through the initiative, consent,
and collaboration of sovereign states. International organization
was thus brought into being not so much by prophets who saw
it as the legitimate successor to sovereign states, as by statesmen
who sought new arrangements and devices whereby the sovereign
units of the old system could pursue their interests and manage
their affairs in the altered circumstances of the age of communica-
tion and industrialism.

The Concert of Europe

The first of the three major streams of development whose
rise may be traced to the nineteenth century is the system of mul-
tilateral, high-level, political conferences.

Diplomacy, the traditional technique for conduct of interna-
tional affairs, was essentially a bilateral phenomenon, involving
occasional consultation and negotiation between two sovereigns
or their representatives. Larger-scale gatherings of the managers
of foreign relations were not unknown before the nineteenth cen-
tury, and the idea of such conferences had a respectable age. Thus,
Hugo Grotius, the so-called "father of international law,” opined
in 1625 that:

It would be advantageous, indeed in a degree necessary, to hold
certain conferences of Christian powers, where those who have no
interest at stake may settle the disputes of others, and where, in
fact, steps may be taken to compel parties to accept peace on fair
terms.®

However, the Congress of Vienna in 1815 initiated a series 'of
developments which made it possible to speak of a nineteenth-
century conference system without precedent in the modem
world.

The dazzling assemblage at Vienna was convoked to lay the
diplomatic foundations for a new European order upon the ruins
which had been created by the disastrous Napoleonic Wars. It
was conceived by its leading participants as the forerunner of a
series of regular consultations among the great powers which
would serve as board meetings for the European community of

* Cited in H. Lauterpacht, The Function of Lour in the International Community
(Oxford' Clarendon Press. 19)3) , p. 7. n. 2.

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARE:

nations. This ambitious concept quickly faded; four major con-
ferences between 1815 and 1822 sufficed to reveal differences in
policy and objective among the great powers which made it im-
possible for them to collaborate in the operation of such a sys-
tematic scheme for the management of Europe. Nevertheless, the
techniques of diplomacy had been irrevocably changed. Europe
was not ready for institutionalized management, but in practice
the leaders of the major states constituted themselves a Concert
of Europe which met sporadically, some thirty times in the course
of the century, to deal with pressing political issues. The diplo-
matic history of this era is studded with such landmarks as the
Congress of Paris in 1856, the London Conferences of 1871 and
1912-13, the Berlin Congresses of 1878 and 1884-85, and the
Algeciras Conference of 1906. Diplomacy by conference became
an established fact of life in the nineteenth century.

This development involved a great deal more than the mere
multiplication of multilateral convocations. A major feature of
the unsystematic system was the frank assumption of special status
and responsibility by the most powerful states; the term, "great
power,” took on a definite meaning and became something like a
formally established category after 1815. The Concert of Europe
was an exclusive club for great powers, whose members were self-
appointed guardians of the European community and executive
directors of its affairs. They sometimes admitted European small
fry to their Splendid Presence, and occasionally failed to domi-
nate the scene as completely as they wished, but they left no room
for doubt that the Conceit of Europe was in fact a Concert of
the Great Powers.

This hegemony of the powerful had its seamy side, as all dicta-
torships must. If it is true of individuals, it is surely even more
true of states, that possession of extraordinary power and author-
ity leads to abuse and selfish exploitation. In the case of this
directorate, however, mutual jealousies tended to limit the misuse
of power for the purposes of either corporate or individual selfish-
ness. But what is moTe important for our purposes than the effects
of great power predominance is the fact that the existence of a
board of directors implied the existence of a corporation. If "great
power” became a more concretely meaningful expression, so did
"Europe.” The Treaty of Paris in 1815, establishing the Quad-

INTERNATIONA!. ORGANIZATION, 1 9TH CENTURY 25

ruple Alliance, contained a reference to the function of the great
powers to take measures “for the maintenance of the Peace of
Europe.” 1 A conception of European solidarity, of a community
of nations, took root in the nineteenth century and found its ex-
pression in the operative agency of the Concert of Europe.

The great powers gave evidence in various ways of their assump-
tion that Europe was a political community as well as a geo-
graphical category. The Concert decided on the admission of new
members to "Europe,” as when it accepted Greece and Belgium
as independent states in 1830, and declared that non-Christian
Turkey was entitled to full status in the European system in 1856.
It undertook, from the conclusion of the Treaty of Chaumont in
1814, "to maintain the equilibrium of Europe,” 6 and in pursu-
ance of this aim, intervened in such matters as the Russo-Turkish
conflicts of the 1850's with a view to preventing the disruption of
the balance of power upon which European order was deemed to
depend. It assumed the responsibility of formulating certain
standards of European public policy, as when it insisted at the
Congress of Berlin in 1878 that Serbia could "enter the European
family” only if it recognized the religious liberty of its subjects,
described as one of "the principles which are the basis of social
organization in all States of Europe." * The Concert system was
the manifestation of a rudimentary but growing sense of inter-
dependence and community of interest among the states of Eu-
rope.

The functions which the Concert presumed to exercise on be-
half of Europe point to another major aspect of the developing
nineteenth-century system. Multilateral conferences became some-
thing more than "peace” conferences in the traditional sense —
meetings of statesmen to conclude wars and agree upon treaties
of peace. The occasions and purposes of consultation, and the sub-
ject matter of international discussion, became more varied. The
numerous conferences which were held in the decades after the
Congress of Vienna were concerned with the maintenance of

•See the excerpt in Gerard J. 'Mangone, A Short Wstory oj International t ir-
gamzation (New York McGraw-Hill, 1934), p. 64.

•See Article XVI of the Treaty of Chaumont, Frederick II Hartmann, ed..
Banc Documents of International Relations (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1931), p. 3.

* Oscar 1 Janowsky. Nationalities and National Minorities (New York: Macmillan,
1915). p 180

swor:

INTO PLOWSHARES

existing peaceful conditions, the substitution of pacific for vio-
lent methods of manipulating the balance of power, the agree-
ment upon ground rules for playing the competitive game of
imperialism, and the formulation of general international legis-
lation applicable to the ordinary relations of states. The Concert
system gave Europe, for the first time since the rise of national
states, something imperfectly resembling an international parlia-
ment, which undertook to deal by collective action with current
problems ranging from the regulation of international traffic on
the great rivers of the Continent to the adjustment of relations
between belligerent and neutTal states, and from the re-division
of Balkan territories to the carving up of Africa.

Not only was the principle of joint consultation established,
and the expectation of collective diplomatic treatment of major
international issues normalized, but important progress was made
in developing the techniques and creating the psychological pre-
requisites of successful multilateral negotiation. It should be em-
phasized that international cooperation requires a great deal more
than good intentions. When the bachelor and the spinster get
married, being in love will help them get along with each other,
but they will find that they both have habits appropriate to single
bliss rather than to matrimony, and they are confronted with a
problem of learning to live together which is more a problem ot
the head than ot the heart. The analogy applies to the relation-
ships of states; it is no simple problem for sovereigns to develop
the devices which are essential for the efficient conduct of multi-
lateral conferences and to adopt the attitudes which are necessary
for harmonious consultation.

Before the nineteenth century, the rulers of Europe were so
preoccupied with their Sovereign Dignity that they were virtually
unable to do anything more at international conferences than
argue about questions of precedence and prestige. In planning
for a peaceful European order, William Penn felt compelled to
stipulate that sovereigns should meet in a round room with many
doors, so that substantive discussions should not be delayed by
long arguments about who should have the privilege of entering
first into the rooml Rousseau described international conferences
as places where we deliberate in common council whether the

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION, 19TH CENTURY 27

table will be round or square, whether the hall will have more
doors or less, whether such and such a plenipotentiary will have
his face or back turned toward the window .” 1

No subsequent developments have completely eliminated such
seemingly trivial matters from the list of obstacles to effective in-
ternational cooperation, but the experience gained and the pro-
cedural innovations adopted in the great conferences of the nine-
teenth century contributed notably to the facilitation of serious
consideration of problems by the representatives or rulers of sov-
ereign states. Statesmen learned something about the arrange-
ments and procedures, and became imbued with some of the
temperamental attributes, which make possible the give and take
of genuine multilateral negotiation.

Sound evaluation of the nineteenth-century political conference
system requires caution against exaggerating its contribution to
the development of international organization. It did not produce
permanently functioning institutions for handling the problems
of high politics and security. Conferences were sporadic rather
than periodic; they were, in Sir Alfred Zimmern’s phrase, "the
medicine of Europe rather than its daily bread." • Collaboration
was improvised, not regularized, and it rested upon the basis of
the authority which the great powers arrogated to themselves
rather than upon clearly established legal foundations.

The conference system did not inaugurate a rule of law, or
produce an impartial agency politically superior to national states
and capable of upholding the moral standards of a larger com-
munity. It was a system of de facto gTeat power hegemony, and
the fact that its arrangements frequently resulted in collective or
international decisions did not mean that those decisions were
necessarily wise or just. Indeed, the beginning of wisdom for the
student of international organization — a start which can very well
be made in the study of the Concert of Europe — is to learn to
avoid the illusion that decisions made by many states, whether
they be small or great powers, are, simply because of their collec-
tive origin, almost automatically superior in wisdom and right-

’Cunt In f S Dunn. The Freetiee and Proeedure e f International Cvnfetenttt
{Baltimore John* Hoptlnt, I9.’9). pp. 78-79.

* I he League af .Nations and the Rule of Lav, 1913-19)) (London. Macmillan,
p 78

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

eousness to decisions made by individual states. Sitting around a
conference table does not transform selfish nationalists and arro-
gant power politicians into a collegium of world-minded, justice-
oriented statesmen of humanity.

The Concert of Europe was rather inappropriately named.
It was an orchestra without a conductor or regular rehearsals,
whose members played with so little respect for the score that
they produced cacophony more often than harmony. The brasses
and basses insisted upon always playing fortissimo, with the result
that piccolo solos were excluded from the repertory. What was
worse, the players exhibited a tendency to fight each other, and
valued their instruments more as weapons than as music-makers.

When all is said and done, the political conference system con-
tributed more to awareness of the problems of international col-
laboration than to their solution, and more to opening up the
possibilities of multilateral diplomacy than to realizing them.
But it produced the prototype of a major organ of modem inter-
national organization— the executive council of the great powers.

The Hague System

A new sort of international conclave was instituted at the
Hague in 1899 and 1907. The conscious construction of a distinc-
tive “Hague System" of international relations was interrupted
all too soon by the outbreak of the First World War, but the
beginning that had been made was significant enough to figure
as one of the major contributions of the nineteenth century to
present-day world organization.

The two “International Peace Conferences” held at the Hague,
under the initial impetus provided by Czar Nicholas II of Russia,
were notable as major diplomatic gatherings convoked in time
of peace to deal with a variety of subjects involved in the business
of international relations. While the original motivations behind
the Hague Conferences were questionable (it has been alleged
that the Czar was actuated less by sincere desire to promote peace
than by worry about Russia’s financial disadvantage in the arma-
ments competition), and their immediate results were not univer-
sally regarded as promising (the London Times held that the
conference of 1907 “was a sham, and has brought forth a progeny

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION, 1 9TH CENTURY 29

of shams, because it was founded on a sham” ®), it is clear that
the Hague meetings were envisaged as steps toward a more ade-
quate organization of the state system, and it is from that point
of view that they will be discussed here.

A leading feature of the Hague System was its approach toward
universality. Whereas the first conference was attended by only
twenty-six states, and was preponderantly European in compo-
sition, the second involved representatives of forty-four states,
including the bulk of the Latin American republics. Thus, the
world achieved in 1907 its first General Assembly; as the presi-
dent of that conference put it, ‘‘This is the first time that the
representatives of all constituted States have been gathered to-
gether to discuss interests which they have in common and which
contemplate the good of all mankind.” 10 This was a significant
step toward broadening the focus of international diplomacy, to-
ward escaping the increasingly unrealistic European-fixation and
defining more accurately the boundaries of the community of na-
tions with whose problems statesmen had to deal.

Universality had another implication than inclusion of non-
European states; it meant the acceptance at major diplomatic as-
semblies of the small states on equal terms with the great powers.
If the Concert of Europe had been a Board of Directors of the
European corporation, the Hague System, particularly in 1907,
was a Stockholders Meeting of a much more extensive corpora-
tion. At the Hague, the small states got a strong taste of inde-
pendence and equality. The results were not uniformly good;
there were some accusations that this first draught produced in-
toxication, evidenced by undue self-assertion and unseemly self-
importance on the part of small power representatives, and angry
mutterings were heard that the small states were incapable of
holding the liquor of equal diplomatic status. Nevertheless, it
was a foretaste of things to come. International organization got
its first taste of the difficulties of solving the conflict between
great and small states as to their relative status and function in
the business of managing international affairs. The era of the
Concert had been the period, par excellence, of great power he-

* Cued in J. B. Scott, ed.. American Addresses al the Second Hague Peace
Conference {Boston: Cmn, 1910), p. xtii.

"J. B. Scott, ed., The Reports to the Hague Conferences of IS99 and 1907
(Oxford- Humphrey Milford. 1917). p- 201.

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

gemony; the Hague Conferences ushered in the heyday of the
small states.

These conferences marked a new peak in the development of
collective activity for the purpose of general permanent reform
of the system of international relations, as distinguished from the
purpose of dealing with specific, temporary situations. More con-
spicuously than the Concert of Europe, the Hague System was
divorced fTom the immediate problems raised by particular wars
or disputes, and was concerned with international problems in
the abstract. In an important sense, this statement justifies the
contention that the conferences were a sham. The powers con-
sented to meet largely because the original Russian initiative
could not be spurned without diplomatic embarrassment and
pacifistic public opinion could not be ignored without domestic
embarrassment. Their willingness to consider general principles
was but the reverse side of their unwillingness to submit specific
issues, which were the real components of the contemporary prob-
lem of peace, to the judgment of a conference. In political terms,
the conferences involved a considerable degree of multilateral in-
sincerity, and met in an atmosphere heavy with unreality. Never-
theless, the statesmen of the Hague, for whatever reasons, con-
tributed to the establishment of the precedent that collective
diplomacy should be oriented toward such matters as the codifi-
cation and further development of important branches of inter-
national law, the formulation of standing procedures for the
peaceful settlement o[ disputes, and the promotion of the prin-
ciple that pacific solutions should be sought by disputants and
might properly be urged and facilitated by disinterested states.

The Hague concepts w«e not revolutionary; they pointed to-
ward encouragement of avoidance of war and mitigation of the
e\ils and barbarities of warfare rather than recision of the legal
right of states to make war, and toward the evolution of tolerable
conditions of international life within the multistate system
rather than drastic transformation of the system itself. But the
business of the Hague was clearly the reform of the rules and
methods of the system, rather than the solution of the problems
arising out of particular cases of conflict within the system.

This aspect of the Hague Conferences was emphasized by the
attention which was given to the task of institution-building. For

INTERNATIONA'!, ORGANIZATION, 19TH CENTURY 31

our purposes, the primary historical importance of the meetings
of 1899 and 1907 lies in the fact that a major concern of the par-
ticipants tvas to create devices and agencies which would be per-
manently at the disposal of states.

The urge toward institutionalization was expressed first in re-
gard to the Hague Conferences themselves. At the 1907 assembly,
the view clearly predominated that there should be not simply
Hague Conferences, but a Hague System. The concept of regular,
periodic international conferences, which had received acceptance
only from 1815 to 1822 as a basic plank in the platform of the
Concert of Europe, was reintroduced. The interval between the
two Hague Conferences had been eight years, and the American
representatives in 1907 favored the establishment of machinery
by which future conferences would be regularly convened with-
out the necessity of initiatory action by any state. This proposal
was not fully accepted, but the second conference did recommend
“the assembly of a Third Peace Conference, which might be held
within a period corresponding to that which has elapsed since the
preceding Conference, at a date to be fixed by common agree-
ment between the Powers. . . 11 This action led Joseph H.

Choate, a member of the American delegation, to comment:

Friends o£ peace, friends of arbitration, may now depend upon it
that every seven or eight jears there will be a similar conference,
and that where the last conference left the work unfinished the
new conference will take it up, and so progress from time to time
be steadily made. . . . 12

The hope for a reunion at the Hague in 1915 was dashed by the
outbreak of a general war, but the revitalization of the idea of a
regular assembly of the nations was to prove a more significant
event than the gentlemen of 1907 could have imagined.

In other important respects, the Hague Conferences tended
toward systematization. Their very size conduced to the adoption
of innovations in conference technique. Experimental use was
mad*. ssS. Vwe A’ppiTzA.vA ofc cbaivauOT., committees^ and toll calls.,
even though "It seemed extraordinary to those not accustomed to
it to see Governments, as ordinary individuals, responding to a

11 Ibid , p. 216.

“Scoh, American Addressee at the Second Hague Peace Conference, p *xv.

32 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

roll-call.” “ Although the rule oE unanimity formally prevailed,
this traditional practice, resting upon the fundamental respect for
sovereignty which characterized international law, was mitigated
to the extent that voeux, or recommendations oE the conference,
were passed by a mere majority vote. Most significantly of all, the
1907 assembly anticipated the future by proposing that a prepara-
tory committee should be established to collect and study sug-
gested items of business and prepare an agenda for the next meet-
ing, and to put fonvard a system of organization and procedure
for adoption by the Third Hague Conference, 1 * The statesmen
gathered at the Hague, looking forward to the completion of a
permanent home for their meetings which had been promised by
Andrew Carnegie, clearly believed that they were favored to be
the founding fathers of a permanently functioning, efficiently or-
ganized mechanism for the maintenance of world peace.

The Hague efforts at institutional creativity extended also to
the erection oi agencies which would be available for use by
states involved in particular quarrels. In 1899, a Convention for
the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes was adopted, con-
taining provisions for the establishment and functioning of ad
hoc International Commissions of Inquiry, at the option of the
disputing parties, and for the creation of the Permanent Court
of Arbitration. The latter body was misnamed, since it in fact
consisted of a standing list of persons who might be selected as
arbitrators whenever states wished to avail themselves of their
services. Nevertheless, it was "permanent" in the sense that it was
equipped with a standing professional staff and diplomatic board
of control, and with a set of rules for the process of arbitration.
The establishment of this agency did not satisfy the ambitions of
the Hague statesmen; they expended great energy in the effort
to create two full-fledged judicial institutions, a Court of Arbitral
Justice and an International Prize Court. These projects did not
reach fruition, but the Hague Conferences nevertheless repre-
sented the climax of a century of development in which attention
shifted more and more to the possibilities of international institu-
tion* as instruments of world peace.

The Hague Conferences were notable events in the history of

“Scolt, The Reports to the Hague Conferences of tS99 and l$07. p xxxi.

u Ibii„ pp 218 217.

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION. 19tH CENTURY 33

international organization not so much because of their actual
accomplishments as because of the conceptions to which they gave
expression, the hopes which they dramatized, the proposals which
they largely failed to put into effect, and the problems which
they failed to solve but succeeded in exposing.

The abortive system of the Hague called attention to the emerg-
ing reality of a global, rather than a merely European, state sys-
tem, the demands of small states for participation in the manage-
ment of that system, and the need for institutionalized procedures,
as well as improvised settlements, in the conduct of international
relations.

The Hague approach to the problem of peace was distinctly
rationalistic and legalistic. The focus on the peaceful settlement
of disputes was a clear indication of the underlying assumption
that war was a product of misunderstandings and emotional flur-
ries that could be eliminated by elucidation of the facts in dispute,
clarification of the applicable law, and invocation of the calmness
and self-possession of reasonable men. This reliance upon rational
prudence and the judicial temper may have been excessive. Post-
poning evaluation, let it be said here that it was, for better or for
worse, a leading characteristic of the Hague approach which was
transmitted to subsequent conferences on international organiza-
tion and is today a significant element in the operative theory of
international organization. The Hague ideal of rationally self-
restrained states submitting to a kind of Olympian judgment has
not been realized, but neither has it been abandoned.

The conferences of 1899 and 1907 also anticipated twentieth-
century international organization in the measure of their con-
cern for peace in the abstract. They were devoted to building a
peaceful system and preventing or controlling war in general,
rather than to maintaining peace in a particular crisis or liqui-
dating a specific war. Such an emphasis, in some degree, must
characterize any system of international organization. It marks
the inherent differences between systems and organizations on
the one hand, and expedients and improvisations on the other.
Nevertheless, it points to one of the standing difficulties and prob-
lems of balance in international organization.

Almost everyone is for peace in the abstract, and is likely to
he for war in certain specific situations; thus, international or-

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

ganization is likely to attract a volume of enthusiastic verbal sup-
port from public opinion when it works against war which may
prove to be meaningless and ephemeral when it throws its influ-
ence against wars. On the other hand, experience shows that
statesmen are unlikely to develop deep interest in the process of
international organization, conceived as an approach to problems
of peace in the abstract. The leaders of governments are almost
by definition men who are preoccupied with the events and
dangers of the present, with the crises oE the moment, and they
are not inclined to attach much importance to activities directed
toward the solution of less concrete and immediate problems. In
the mid-twentieth century, few Western statesmen can avoid trans-
lating “peace through security against aggression" into “peace
through precautions against Soviet aggression"; they are not so
much concerned with the problem of war as with the danger of
World War III. The really fundamental support of statesmen is
reserved for agencies designed to cope with urgent situations, not
for those devoted to building a world order. This problem can
not be solved simply by avowing that statesmen are selfish and
short-sighted and should become world-minded and far-seeing.
Some change in that direction is essential, but it is equally neces-
sary for international organization to achieve a proper balance
between the projects of building a world system and of solving
current international difficulties, between transforming inter-
national relations in the long run and saving international peace
in the short run. This persistent problem of international organ-
ization was foreshadowed at the Hague Conferences.

The Hague System rendered valuable service in calling atten-
tion to the fact that there are difficult problems of international
organization itself — instrumental problems — which must be solved
in some degree before the problems of international relations —
substantive problems — can usefully be tackled by international
organization. Its most significant contribution to the future of
international organization lay perhaps in its identification of some
of the most basic of these instrumental problems. Champions of
a better world order might well reflect on the lesson of the Hague
— that the most valuable support may not be enthusiastic advocacy
which minimizes difficulties but sober analysis which contributes
to fuller understanding of the problems which lie ahead.

nternational organization, 19th century

The Public International Unions

The third major stream of development in the organization of
international life arose from the creation of public international
unions — agencies concerned with problems in various essentially
nonpolitical fields. "Whereas both the Concert and the Hague re-
flected the significance of the quest for security and the impor-
tance of high political issues, this third phenomenon was a mani-
festation of the increasing complexity of the economic, social,
technical, and cultural interconnections of the peoples of the
modern world.

In the nineteenth century, particularly after 1850, a new type
of organizational effort emerged as the response of governments
to the difficulties posed and the opportunities offered by the un-
precedented international flow of commerce in goods, services,
people, ideas, germs, and social evils. This was truly a revolu-
tionary era; only a short while before, the national state had been
too large to serve as the appropriate administrative unit for many
of the affairs of men-in-society; now, it had become too small. The
first products of the groping of states to create a rough corre-
spondence between the area of administration and the new scope
of the affairs requiring administration were the various inter-
national river commissions of Europe, the International Tele-
graphic Union (1865), and the Universal Postal Union (1874).
The process of international organization, thus begun, quickly
resulted in the establishment of a profusion of agencies whose
terms of reference touched upon such diverse fields as health,
agriculture, tariffs, railroads, standards of weight and measure-
ment, patents and copyrights, narcotic drugs, and prison condi-
tions.

This trend, it should be emphasized, was not the product so
much of proposals as of facts, conditions, and needs. It repre-
sented adaptation, not innovation: it was less the work of ideal-
ists with schemes to advance than of realists with problems to
handle. This is not to say that idea-men played no part in the
process It was a typical historical development in that the imagi-
native initiative of individuals and groups sparked a process of
conscious social contrivance to meet the requirements formulated

35 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

by circumstances. Yet, the essentially organic character of this
trend in international affairs may be buttressed by reference to
parallel trends within individual countries. In the nations most
affected by the technological and industrial revolution, central
governments were gaining in importance, compared with local
and provincial governments, as agencies of administrative regula-
tion, and they were expanding their administrative jurisdiction to
cover aspects of economic and social life which had for some time
been regarded as outside the province of government. In the in-
ternational realm, the development of public international unions
represented fundamentally similar patterns of evolution: the cre-
ation of international bodies to supplement the administrative
work of national governments with narrowly limited territorial
spheres of competence, and the notable expansion of the subject
matter of international relations to include many problems which
had been outside the scope of traditional diplomacy.

It has often been asserted that these national trends were pro-
duced, in more or less conspiratorial fashion, by mysteriously pow-
erful statists and socialists, and the analogous international trends
by similarly potent and devious internationalists and world gov-
ernmentaiists. A much less romantic theory seems valid: that the
world has witnessed appropriately similar and simultaneous na-
tional and international adaptations to new conditions of com-
plexity, which necessitate the redefinition of jurisdictional boun-
daries to correspond with the expanding territorial scope of prob-
lems requiring solution, and the redefinition of the functional
responsibility of governmental institutions to correspond with the
expanding area of subject matter requiring regulation.

The nineteenth-century international organizations represented
at most the initiation, not the consummation, of a trend toward
international control of the subjects with which they were con-
cerned. Although the national and international developments
which have been pointed out were fundamentally similar, in
terms of directional tendencies, they were profoundly different,
in terms of immediate results; domestically, the agencies of ex-
panded territorial and functional jurisdiction were instruments
of authoritative government; internationally, the corresponding
agencies were instruments of voluntary cooperation among states.
V’liblic international unions were not segments of governmental

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION, 19tH CENTURY 37

apparatus, drawing power from the circuits of a pre-established
dynamo of sovereignty, but rudimentary pieces of a system of
intergovernmental collaboration, dependent for their operation
upon such power as could be generated in the new and drasti-
cally incomplete plant of international authority.

These agencies engaged in a range of activities which was some-
thing new under the international sun. Most importantly, they
served as collection points and clearing houses for information,
centers for discussion of common problems by governments, in-
struments for achieving the coordination by agreement of national
policies and practices, and agencies for promoting the formulation
and acceptance of uniform or minimum standards in the fields of
their concern. To a lesser extent, some of them had functions of
actual regulation and administration in limited spheres and of
arbitration or conciliation in cases of conflict among states. On
the whole, however, this was a system for the provision of services
to governments and the facilitation of cooperative relations among
governments, not for the management of affairs or the govern-
ment of people.

It is obvious that, judged by such criteria as the possession of
legislative competence, power of taxation, and executive author-
ity, the public international unions of the nineteenth century
were vastly inferior to those institutions which we call govern-
ments. However, the clue to their significance may be found not
in the observation that they were less than governments, but in
the observation that they were different from governments. It is
perhaps less than absolutely self-evident that the necessary and
proper approach to world order consists simply of the mimicry
of the devices and methods of national government. In any event,
the founders of these agencies did not set out to create super-
national governmental institutions, and end up by creating in-
credibly inadequate ones; rather, they undertook to establish
international mechanisms for doing a kind of job that had never
been done before, and they succeeded in stimulating an experi-
mental development of functional innovations in international
relations which has not yet begun to reach the limits of its poten-
tial historical significance.

Turning from function to form, we find that the nonpohtical
international bodies of the nineteenth century produced orgam-

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

zational inventions which were of fundamental importance for
the future. The first genuinely permanent international machin-
ery was the product and property of these agencies. The Bureau
of the International Telegraphic Union, established in 1868, was
the prototype of the secretariat, the vital core of any modem
international organization. This development of a permanent staff
to give continuity to the organization, to carry out functions of
research, correspondence, and publication, and to prepare the
business and make arrangements for future conferences, was the
crucial step in the transformation of international organizations
from sequences of disconnected conferences into genuine institu-
tions. In addition to establishing bureaus, the public international
unions of the nineteenth century introduced the dichotomy be-
tween the general policy-making conference of all the member
states and the council or governing body, consisting of representa-
tives of a few selected members and functioning as a policy direc-
torate on behalf of the organization in the intervals between
general conferences. Thus was established the structural pattern
of bureau, council, and conference which, with many elaborations
but few deviations, serves as the blueprint of international organi-
zation today.

Modest but significant advances in the techniques of inter-
national collaboration and breaches in the rigidity of principles
impeding the development of collective action were brought
about by public international unions. Valuable experience was
gained in handling the myriad problems of language, documen-
tation, internal organization, and procedure of large-scale inter-
national gatherings. The treaty, traditionally an agreement nego-
tiated by the representatives of two or a few states for the
establishment of particular legal rights and duties pertaining to
themselves, was given the form of the multilateral convention,
hammered out in committee and conference of many states, voted
upon as if it were a legislative bill, and adopted to serve as a
joint legislative enactment. Such a convention might relate to
any one of a thousand subjects, ranging from the handling of
international postal communications to the control of epidemic
diseases, which were for the most part utterly foreign to the sub-
ject matter traditionally dealt with by treaties. Technically, multi-
lateral conventions were still treaties, despite their unusual sub-

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION, 1 9TH CENTURY 39

ject matter, the quasi-parliamentary nature o£ the proceedings
leading to their formulation, and the fact that their participants
resembled a congregation more than a partnership; this meant
that each state was equally entitled to have a voice in their forma-
tion and to consider itself unaffected by them unless it consented
to be bound by their terms. However, some minor revisions ap
peared even in regard to these sacrosanct implications of sover-
eignty. Arrangements for the unequal distribution of voting
power were made in several unions, and the rules of unanimity
and "no treaty obligation without ratification" were pushed aside,
formally in the International Telegraphic Union and informally
in the Universal Postal Union, to permit the easier adoption of
generally applicable rules on essentially noncontroversial and
technical matters. The multilateral convention was, and still is,
a clumsy and inadequate device for international legislation, but
the creation of this instrument out of the old materials of the
treaty device was nevertheless a major triumph of nineteenth-
century nonpolitical organizations.

This phase of the development of international organization
was marked by the emergence of wholly new groups of partici-
pant s in the business of international affairs, which had hitherto
been virtually a monopoly of diplomats, foreign ministers, and
other statesmen accustomed to wearing die mantle of sovereignty.
The result could hardly have been otherwise when international
relations began to include such matters as public health, tele-
graphic codes, and plant diseases, along with wars, alliances, and
boundaries. The intruders included all manner of professional
specialists and technical experts, members of the embryonic body
of international civil servants, private interest-group and humani-
tarian organizations, and governmental officials and minister* out-
ride the foreign offices. Many of the new agencies owed their
creation to nondiplomats; for instance, David Lubin, a Sacra-
mento merchant, was the instigator of die movement that pro-
duced the Intemadonal Institute of Agriculture. 1 * and American
and German postal officials initiated the formation of the Uni-
versal Postal Union. Some international unions began as organ-
prions of private associations, and were later transformed by the
substitution of governmental for unofficial delegations; in a few

‘Man-ore op til , pp 8V«.

40 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

cases, they remained mixed, private and public, in character. In
operation, public international unions relied heavily upon the
work of experts, and governments tended to entrust the repre-
sentative function at conferences to subject-matter specialists from
appropriate departments rather than, or in addition to, profes-
sional diplomats. This tendency for everyone to get in on the
international act was not an unmixed blessing, but it was clearly
a novel phenomenon, and another of the nineteenth-century
portents of things to come.

In the final analysis, the most significant contribution of the
early public international unions to the evolution of international
organization was a cluster of ideas and attitudes. The most im-
portant of these was a derivative of the expanded concept of the
subject matter of international relations: the implication that
there is an area of international affairs within which sovereign
states have a common interest in cooperative endeavor. If we
conceive international relations narrowly enough, we can main-
tain the simple proposition that they are reducible to the terms
of conflicting-interest relationships. If we conceive them broadly
enough to embrace their total reality, our neat picture is rudely
complicated by the necessity of recognizing that they also partake
of the character of common-interest relationships. This was the
lesson of the nonpolitical organizational system oE the nineteenth
century. The Concert stood for compromise; the Hague stood for
regulation; the public international unions stood for cooperation.
The cooperative concept is not essentially idealistic or altruistic.
Its focus is on the satisfaction of needs, which demands not so
much the sacrifice of sovereignty as the utilization of the resources
of sovereignty to create institutions and methods capable of sup-
plementing the functional activity of national governments. The
creation of public international unions was indicative of the rec-
ognition of, and of a groping after compensation for, the func-
tional inadequacy of sovereignty.

Conclusion

Twentieth-century international organization is very largely
the product of the ronvcrcence of these three streams of develop-
ment which asose in the nineteenth century. To a limited extent.

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION, 19tII CENTURY 1 1

international agencies established in the early formative period
of international organization have simply continued to exist: the
most notable instances are those of the Universal Postal Union
and the International Telegraphic Union, now transformed into
the International Telecommunication Union. To a much greater
degree, the past century has influenced the present by providing
the broad outlines of a general system of international organiza-
tion, combining great power councils, universal conferences,
specialized functional units, and permanent staffs. Current inter-
national organization owes much to the earlier period of exper-
imentation in the elaboration of functions, the devising of
structural patterns, and the invention of procedures for multi-
lateral agencies. Most basically, the nineteenth century con-
tributed a broadening concept of the nature and subject matter
of international relations, an evolving sense of the need for joint
decisions and actions by states, a growing recognition of the po-
tential usefulness of international machinery, and an increasingly
clear awareness of the problems of achieving effective interna-

tional organization.

The question must be faced as to whether the nineteenth cen-
tury did not leave us an inheritance more harmful than helpful
to our endeavors for saving the world from chaos and our nations
from destruction. The power politician might say that we were
bequeathed a potentially fatal delusion which has diverted our
attention from literally vital efforts to comprehend the gnm
reality of international relations and to masier the arts 0 nationa
survival in the international jungle. The world federa ist mip J
say that the nineteenth century set us off on the wrong foot,
encouraged us to attempt the impossible tasl of orrn ‘ n -
operations of the multistate system, when we should have
repudiating that system altogether and adopting a wot i P”
mem. Whether these criticisms are valid or not, it is c car • 1
pan of the legacy was an ambiguity which is a persistent
«bc existence of international organization. Men an na 10
the liencfus of international organization, but tie) a so '
retain the privileges of sovereignty which are imepara >
tetmuonal disorganization. The development of ImmatwM
organization has been plagued by the failure of hum«j -
th.nl logically and realistically about the inexorable relationship*

42 SWORDS INTO PLOWS KAREL

between the purchase and the price, between the having and the
eating of the cake. The discrepancies among the objective need
for international organization, the subjective awareness of that
need, and the subjective capacity of men to create and maintain
the organizational structure appropriate to that need are a part
of the established tradition of international organization.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Choate, Joseph H., The Two Hague Conferences, Princeton: Prince-
ton University Press, 1913.

Mangone, Gerard J., A Short History of International Organization,
New York: McGraw-Hill, 1954.

Mitrany, David, The Progress of International Government, New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1933.

Phillips, Walter Alison, The Confederation of Europe, Second Edition,
London: Longmans, Green, 1920.

Reinsch, Paul S., Public International Unions, Boston: Ginn, 1911.

Webster, C. K., The Congress of Vienna, New York: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1919.

Woolf, L. S , International Government, London: George Allen and
Unwin, 1916.

CHAPTER

The Establishment of
the League of Nations

It is useful to consider the nineteenth century as the era of
preparation for international organization, and, for this purpose,
to treat 1815, the year of the Congress of Vienna, and 1914, the
year of the outbreak of World War I, as its chronological bounda-
ries. Starting thus, we establish the years which have passed since
the momentous events of 1914 as the era of esta ts imen o
international organization, which, in these terms, c °|” es °
regarded as a phenomenon of the twentieth century. ere
element of artificiality in this scheme, as in all efforts to divide
history into distinct periods, but it is nevertheless a servicea
device for the study of the process of organizing internation

relations. . „„

Clearly, the establishment of the League of . ations was
event of fundamental importance, worthy of being consi ^
decisive forward step in that evolutionary P r ? ce * s . ° °

the figure, nineteenth-century institutions provi e 1
but the League of Nations provided the parentage,
tional organization as we know it today.

The purpose of this chapter is to analyze the creation of**
League, with particular emphasis upon the ! ° u ' c “ hk]l it „. a!
the nets organization derived and the nature s
invested. The legal and structural pattern and operattonal eape

SWORDS

TO PLOWSHARES

rience of the League will be dealt with in segmental fashion in
subsequent parts of this book. It suffices at this point to treat the
establishment of the League as one of the great flurries of crea-
tivity in the historical development of international organization.

Sources of the League

The immediate origins of the League of Nations are to be
found in the development of both private and public schemes
during the War of 1914-1918, particularly in the United States
and Great Britain, and in the negotiations which took place at
Paris as a part of the diplomatic enterprise of bringing the war
to a formal conclusion. Unofficial consideration of the possibility
of making a great new experiment in international organization
flourished during the years of hostilities, under the leadership of
such groups of prominent and influential citizens as those who
united in the League to Enforce Peace, in the United States, and
the League of Nations Society, in Britain.

Governmental leaders were not far behind. Lord Robert Cecil
devoted himself to advocacy of a postwar organizational effort
in the British Cabinet, with the result that a committee was
established under Lord Phillimore to draft definite proposals.
The French Government set up a similar planning body,
headed by L^on Bourgeois. In the United States, President Wil-
son gave public support to the concept of a League of Nations as
early as 1916. In his address of April 2, 1917, invoking a formal
Congressional declaration of war upon Germany, he asserted the
national purpose of fighting "for a universal dominion of right
by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety
to all nations and make the world itself at last free,” 1 and he later
included an even more explicit commitment to the formation of
"a general association of nations’* as the climactic point in his
famous list of war aims known as the “Fourteen Points.” 2 Wilson
and his trusted adviser. Colonel House, undertook the prepara-
tion of American blueprints for the proposed organization. Fi-
nally. a pamphlet. The League of Natirws: A Praeihai Suggrs-

1 Ray S. Baker and William E. Dodd, edi., The Public Papers of Woodrow
ll'iljon, 11‘ar and Peace (New York: n d.) . I, 16.

SMMENT of the league of nations

ESTABLI

lion, by the distinguished statesman of South Africa and the
British Empire, Jan Christiaan Smuts, provided perhaps the most
significant example of governmental thinking about international
organization before the convening of the peace conference.

The actual formulation of the Covenant of the League of
Nations was the work of a special committee established by the
Paris Peace Conference, which began its sessions in January
1919. The committee consisted of representatives of the five great
powers— Britain, France, the United States, Italy, and Japan—
and of at first five, then nine, of the smaller states. Wilson served
as chairman, and the great powers effectively dominated the
proceedings. More precisely, the drafting of the Covenant became
a predominantly Anglo-American enterprise; the Hurst-Miller
draft, a combination of British and American plans, was used as
the basic working paper, and Wilson, Cecil, and Smuts earned

the title of Fathers of the League.

Presented to the plenary conference on April 28, 1919, the
Covenant became an integral part of the Treaty of Versai es,
and assumed formal effectiveness on January 10, 1920. It was, in
terms of its direct derivations, the product of specific wartime
planning and postwar negotiations; in a more fundamenta sense,
however, it was a product of history, of contemporary circum-
stances, and of an emergent trend in international life.

We have already sketched, in Chapter 2, the preliminary devel-
opments in the field of international organization w uc i con

tributed to the shaping of the Covenant.

League was in part a process of imitation of the organizationa
forms and types of the nineteenth century. But strict imitation
was not so much in evidence as completion, elaboration, an
progressive adaptation of the primitive prototypes of internal o
organization. The Council of the League was a new edition ot the
Concert of Europe; but it was a significantly revise ec lt ‘ on ' ,
corporating the principles of legal definition o aut ,on J
terms of reference, institutional continuity, regu ant) o
and balanced composition of great and small ^

The formation of the

Daianced composition oi ****^ — ■ . , , n j

I've. The Assembly represented the realization oi the pa
plans of the Hague statesmen for a general »nFeret,re of the
nations, meeting periodically without dependence Q {-

use of a single state and equipped to develop stand. ng rule.

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARE!

procedure. The Secretariat was an institutional flowering o£ the
seminal concept o£ the international bureau which had been
found in the earlier unions. The Permanent Court of Inter-
national Justice, which was anticipated in Article 14 of the
Covenant 5 but not definitively established until its Statute re-
ceived ratification by a majority of the members of the League on
August 20, 1921, constituted the full-fledged international judicial
organ which the Hague Conferences, dissatisfied with the primi-
tive Permanent Court of Arbitration, had vainly tried to create.
The International Labor Organization, a partially autonomous
agency but one closely related to the League, was the lineal de-
scendant of the system of specialized functional organizations of
the nineteenth century. The Covenant provided for some institu-
tional innovations, such as a standing body to advise the Council
on armaments and military matters and the Permanent Mandates
Commission, but it represented primarily the continuation and
evolution of organizational achievements and the realization of
frustrated organizational hopes of the past century.

The creation of the League may also be regarded as a rational-
ization, localization, and consolidation of previous organizational
developments. The League was a composite of the institutional
descendants of nineteenth-century agencies; it pulled together
the separate lines of development into a coherent system. Al-
though it never fully achieved the comprehensive control of inter-
national cooperative activities which was envisaged in Article 24
of the Covenant, the League did serve generally to convert or-
ganizations into organs of an organization. It provided what has
been variously referred to as a "hub" or a “'rooF' element, giving
the modern world its first taste of institutional centralization.

The League was also the product of nineteenth-century be-
ginnings in the sense that it picked up the ideas, adopted the
assumptions, and reacted to the awarenesses which had been
emergent in that earlier period. It was a more mature response to
the recognition of the need for, and the challenge of the possibili-
ties of, international organization. Smuts showed an appreciation
of the lessons of the past as well as a vision of the future when he
wrote, in 1918:

'See the text of the Covenant in Appendix L

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

It is not sufficient for the League merely to be a sort of deus ex
machina, called in in very grave emergencies when the spectre of
war appears; if it is to last, it must be much more. It must become
part and parcel of the common international life of States, it must
be an ever visible, living, working organ of the polity of civiliza-
tion. It must function so strongly in the ordinary peaceful inter-
course of States that it becomes irresistible in their disputes; its
peace activity must be the foundation and guarantee of its war
power. 4

More immediate historical events also contributed to the
shaping of the new organization; the League was, in important re-
pects, the product of die First World War.

In the first place, it was a response to the realization, now more
widespread and intense than ever before, of the vital need to
prevent wars. It is difficult for us, living in the mid-twentieth cen-
tury, to comprehend the optimism and blissful obliviousness to
the problem of war which had characterized the pre-1914 genera-
tion. Gilbert Murray has given us an illuminating description of
the mood of the Victorian Age:

the mass of educated people did not think much about the danger
which actually brought the age to disaster— the international an-
archy which led to the War. . . .

Things were safe, and improving. And none of the critics seriously
diagnosed the one real danger. They prophesied revolution, an
all sorts of terrors which never came. But they did not see t at
international anarchy of a world administered by some sixty sov-
ereign independent states with no authority oyer them, a muting
no reciprocal duties and nursing unlimited national am itions, wa
a disease carrying the seeds of death. M. Seignobos, the French
historian, wrote two articles in 1913 to explain that he [ C °" SI ^ re *
European war no longer a danger to be reckoned wit • r - rai
ford said the same in his book The War of Steel ^^. pub-
lished in 1914. I am pretty sure I thought the same. The Cosmos,
strong in self-confidence, vigorous in self-criticism, was not
troubled by thoughts of the precipice towards which it was a
moving.®

‘Cited in F. P Walter*. A History of the League of Nations (London. Oxford
University Press, 1952) , I. 59. , pp . J8, 22.

‘From the League to UM. (London- Oxford University Press, 9 ). PP

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

The Great War changed all this; it produced a fresh awareness
of the horrors of war, a rather bewildered admission that modern '
European civilization was not immune from the destructive forces j
of military conflict, and a distressed feeling that "it must not j'
happen again.” _ _ j

This emotional reaction produced the intellectual conviction
that the war had been a horrible accident, resulting from stupid
and indefensible negligence. Arthur Sweetser took a position
which he correctly attributed also to Sir Edward Grey, British
Foreign Minister in 1914, when he wrote soon after the end of
the conflict:

the war came into being largely by default, because the forces of
negotiation and peaceful settlement marshalled against it suddenly
collapsed ... the world in 1914 got itself into a blind alley where
all doors were closed except that to war. . . .

The catastrophe began without a single conference. The nations
were plunged into war by a handful of telegrams which in their
portentous official phraseology are even today not fully understood-
One false step led to another until the vicious circle was complete.
No meeting ground was available, no obligation for discussion ex-
istent. The madmen who had worked for war could generate it
without a pretence of discussion, without the simple human act of
meeting their opponents face to face, without asking yea or nay of
their peoples. 8

The League was based on reaction against “the blind vagrant
way in which the various publics blundered into hostilities in
1914.” T The concept of the Accidental War underlay the system
of prudent precautions which was outlined in the Covenant,
providing guarantees that peoples and governments should have
and utilize opportunities for cooling off, facing facts, and reaching
decent settlements in any future crisis. This principle of a morato-
rium on violent expression of intemperate passions, designed to
exploit the assumed avoidability of war, was pre-eminently a
British contribution to the Covenant.

The League's dedication to the provision of safeguards against
accidental and unnecessary war was illustrative of what is perhaps

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 49

a general tendency for international organizations to exhibit a
retrospective mentality. Such a tendency is no monopoly of inter-
national organizations: if the League was created to prevent the
outbreak of World War I, the French Maginot Line was also built
to win the battles of World War I. But it is significant that the
great organizational endeavors of the modem world have been
parts of the aftermath of great wars, and it is possible to argue
that they have tended to produce instruments better adapted to
preventing the recently concluded tragedy than to dealing with
the momentous issues of the future. The League, established to
prevent the accidental war, was unable to cope with Hitler’s
deliberately plotted campaign of conquest: as we shall see later,
the United Nations may with some justice be described as a
device for nipping World War II, rather than 'World War III, in
the bud, and some of its activities may be interpreted as post-
mortem resistance to Hitler. There is a real danger that newly
created international organizations may not be simply too little
a ud too late, but also already out of date. The fundamental
problem of modem man, not yet adequately appreciated, is to
learn how to build his international organizations on the basis of
a wise understanding of the lessons of history and a perceptive
estimate of the issues and forces which will challenge his survival
and welfare in the future.

The First World War not only aroused the nations to their
responsibility for taking urgent measures to prevent the re-
currence of war’s disastrous effects, but it also stimulated them to
ponder the lessons of the cooperative potentialities which it
revealed. The beginning of wisdom about modern war is to recog-
nize its dual character: it is a phenomenon of conflict, and it is a
Phenomenon of cooperation. In the realm of individual relations,
•ts functional significance from a moral and psychological point
°f view is that it calls for the expression of both uninhibited
hostility and uncommon devotion to a community of effort and
purpose; if it operates primarily to release aggressive instincts in
some men, it also imposes unparalleled demands upon the co-
operative instincts of other men. In the realm of international
relations, a similar dualism characterizes war. It reveals the awful
Potentialities of international conflict, but it also stimulates the
extraordinary development of, and demonstrates unsuspected pos-

5Q SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

sibilities of, the capacity of nations for collaboration. World
War I served to convince men that there existed great resources of
international cooperation which had not previously been tapped.

The experience of wartime cooperation among the members of
the victorious coalition inspired peoples to meet the moral chal-
lenge of proving that they could cooperate as readily to promote
the values of peace and avoid the catastrophe of war as they had
done to bring the war to a successful conclusion. This mood had
a retrospective aspect; the chastisement of war had been visited
upon nations which had been too sovereignly stiff-necked, too
stubbornly uncooperative, to achieve in peacetime the creation of
elementary devices for peaceful settlement of disputes. Allied
collaboration had caused a shift of emphasis away from the
sacrifice of sovereignty, the surrender of freedom of action, to the
positive values — from the price to the reward — of united action
by nations. Thus, the enterprise of the League reflected the ideal
of continuing the collaboration which had produced victory.
Alliance for war had laid the psychological foundations of alliance
for peace.

Moreover, the conduct of the war had made a tangible con-
tribution to the body of experience in creation and operation of
multilateral agencies which was available to the founders of the
League. Great Britain, France, and Italy, ultimately joined by the
United States, had improvised an impressive network of joint
bodies, including a Supreme War Council, a Revictualling Com-
mission, an Allied Maritime Transport Council, and a Blockade
Council. These agencies had proved invaluable in facilitating the
complicated task of fighting together. They had seemed to prove
that effective international cooperation could be achieved, with-
out the necessity of creating an authoritative decision-making
body to issue orders to national governments, by bringing to-
gether responsible officials of governments to get to know and
trust each other, to confront the full and true facts of the situation
together, and to harmonize their national policies on the basis of
respect for the facts and appreciation of the positions of the
various governments. There was some disappointment that the
machinery of economic cooperation was dismantled at the end of
the war, on the insistence of the United States. While the swords

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 51

and spears were not themselves converted into plowshares and
pruninghooks, the instruments of joint military effort neverthe-
less made an important addition to the stock of organizational
models and techniques, and to the fund of optimism concerning
the feasibility of cooperative achievement, which facilitated the
creation of instruments of peaceful collaboration.

The coalition machinery also contributed to the future of inter-
national organization by aiding in the creation of a new breed
of men — a group of officials and experts who had learned the tech-
niques, acquired the attitudes, and developed the affirmative faith
m international cooperation which are essential to its success.
International organization depends heavily upon the work of
such men, serving as national representatives and international
officials. Since 1914, the modern world has produced its first
generation of pioneers in international organization, men who
have made their careers in the new professions of multilateral
diplomacy and international administration. An outstanding ex-
ample of this development is the career of Jean Monnet, a French-
man who learned the skills of international service and statesman-
ship in the wartime coalition machinery, transferred his energies
later to the League, and has most recently played an outstanding
r ole in the creation and operation of the European Coal and
Steel Community. It would be easy to formulate a plausible
Great Man Theory" of international organization, emphasizing
the role of the relatively small group of individuals whose names
appear over and over again in the annals of twentieth-century
international agencies as founding fathers, prominent participants
on behalf of governments, and leading administrative officials. Re-
sisting this temptation, we can at least recognize that the contribu-
tions of this group have been indispensable, particularly in view
of the fact that the most thoroughly state-oriented professional
fFoups involved in the management of international affairs along
more orthodox lines, the diplomats. Foreign Office officials, and
military specialists, have tended to show coolness, if not resistance,
to the development of the newfangled ways and means of inter-
national organization. The rise of international organization to a
place of vital importance in international life depends ultimate )
l, P°n the support and participation of these latter groups, ut

52 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

it is clear chat the preliminary development of a special class of
experts in collaboration within the machinery of the World War
1 coalition was a phenomenon of real significance.

Wartime experience in the joint and coordinated use of the
economic weapon against Germany implanted in the minds of
Allied statesmen the new concept of nonmilitary sanctions, the
economic squeeze, as an instrument for use by international or-
ganization to maintain world peace. This was one of the major
contributions of World War I to the stock of ideas upon which
the League was based.

In short. World War l influenced the creation of the League by
stimulating efforts of the victorious powers to do in peacetime
the things that should have been done before the war, in order
to prevent it, and to continue doing the things which they had
found it possible to do during the war, in order to win it.

Another cluster of factors affecting the formulation of the
Covenant inhered in the general political situation existing in
1919. International organizations arc never simply the products
of creative planning and institutional csolution: they find their
sources deep in the context of national interests and the power
configuration of the international setting out of winch they arise.
Understanding of the nature of the League erected at the Paris
Peace Conference requires analysis of the determinative political
realities of the time.

A primary feature of the situation was the existence of a victori-
ous military coalition. The international atmosphere was “still
reeking with the fumes of war and still moTe or less dominated
by the military spirit." • The psychology of conflict had merged
into the mood of victory, and more than a trace of vindictiveness
appeared in the proceedings at Paris. This points to a persistent
dilemma of international organization: great organizational enter-
prises are dependent upon gTeat wars to demonstrate their urgent
necessity and to stimulate recognition of the feasibility of under-
taking them, yet postwar periods are most inauspicious times for
such undertakings, in the sense that they tend to be dominated
by a temper of hatred, suspicion, and arrogant nationalism which
Hrohes'i'filor fhe esta'iifisliment ol juu lounclat ions for a new world

•Ray S. Baker. Woodrow ll'iJion and the World Settlement (Carden City
Doubleday. t’age, 1922) , I. 16V

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 53

order. The world has not solved the problem of combining post
war psychological readiness to organize with peacetime psycho-
logical fitness to organize.

In 1919, the triumphant Allies desired to harvest the fruits of
victory, to keep the spoils which they had gained, to establish and
uphold a new status quo reflecting the shift in power relations
which military events had produced, and to maintain their
coalition to keep Germany in a posture of defeat. In these terms,
the function envisaged for the League was not so much to keep
peace, but to keep a specific peace — to legitimize and stabilize a
particular world settlement based upon victory. Woodrow Wilson
perhaps wished to incorporate the Covenant into the peace trea-
ties in order to make certain that the League should be estab-
lished while the psychological iron was hot, 8 but it is clear that
some other Allied statesmen approved this incorporation because
they wished to symbolize the mission of the League as custodian of
the architecture of the settlement imposed by victors upon van-
quished.

A second determinative fact was the dominant position of the
Principal Allied and Associated Powers; the world seemed to be
the oyster of the great powers. The basic reality was not simply
that Germany had been defeated, but that the great powers had
done the job. Having won the war, they had the power, the
prestige, and the inclination to determine the shape of the new
regime.

This hegemony of the powerful few was strongly reflected in
the preliminary planning for the League. Their nostalgic recollec-
tions focused on the Concert of Europe, not on the Hague Con-
ferences. By and large, the great powers ran the show in 1919, anil
their conception of a world organization effectively under oli-
garchical direction and control was reflected in the Covenant pro-
vision for permanent membership of five gTeat powers in the nine-
power Council, and the clearly expressed expectation that the
Assembly might meet only at four- or five-year intervals and
would humbly play second fiddle to the Council in the new Con-
cert. The major Allies asserted the right to male the settlement
and assumed the responsibility to dominate the future course of
events.

*C! W'jtiMi, o/> rif, I, 31.

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

A countervailing fact of the politics of Paris was the resurgence
of the small states; the world turned out to be a singularly re-
luctant and recalcitrant oyster of the great powers. The small
states were multiplying in numbers, as the great multinational
empires of Europe disintegrated under the impact of defeat and
separatistic nationalism. They still cherished the taste of sovereign
equality which they had had at the second Hague Conference,
and a peculiar combination of factors supported their claims to
play more than a modest and subservient role in the system of the
future. They had the moral sympathy of Wilson, who had made
the doctrine of national self-determination and the rights of small
nations major ingredients in Allied propaganda. They were in a
position to capitalize upon the determination of France to safe-
guard and enhance its position of Continental primacy by cre-
ating a bloc of European units oriented toward acceptance of
French leadership. They benefited from the traditional concern
of Britain to maintain the European configuration required by
balance of power considerations, and from Britain’s susceptibility
to the pro-small-state influence of its Dominions. These factors
gave the small states a measure of bargaining power which was
utilized to extract such concessions from the great powers as four
seats on the Council of the League, provision for equal participa-
tion of all members in the Assembly, and the general grant of an
indiscriminate veto power in all the arrangements for voting in
the new organization.

The small states hardly had a determining voice at Paris. They
were still mainly objects of policy, rather than makers of policy,
but the general interest in preserving fragmentation as a fact of
the world political system enabled them to bring their influence
to bear upon the shaping of the provisions of the Covenant.

The negotiations which produced the League of Nations were
further marked by significant divergencies among the interests
and policies of the great powers. Moreover, the complexity of the
political pattern was increased by the fact that contradictory
pressures emanated from individual powers. Thus, not only were
compromises effected between British and American, and Anglo-
American and French, conceptions of a world organization, but
concessions were made to both Wilsonian idealism and Senatorial
conservatism on the American side, and to both LGon Bourgeois’

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 55

demand for an ambitious international military system and
Clemenceau’s skepticism concerning newfangled devices and
methods on the French side. Political conflicts within the great
powers, among the great powers, and between great and small
power blocs, all played a part in determining the powers and
limitations of the League and the distribution of power within
the League.

Finally, the League was a product of the ideological climate of
the time. Its sources included not only the heritage of past in-
stitutional inventions and the political realities of the present, but
also the aspirations for the future which were embodied in cur-
rent thinking. Like all great phenomena of human society, the
establishment of the League derived from a combination of facts
and ideas, circumstances and purposes, objective conditions and
subjective conceptions. The new system reflected the philosophi-
cal assumptions and normative ideals which characterized the
contemporary approach to international relations. These factors
were not dominant, but they were important.

The figure of Woodrow Wilson dominated the ideological
scene. He appeared as the prophet of a new era, making a dra-
matic appeal to peoples and governments; he symbolized the idea
that the anarchy of power politics should be ended by the in-
jection into international relations of the highest values evolved
by political man. Sitting at the conference table, he had more
than American power behind him; he was backed by the en-
thusiasm of masses of people in Western Europe who were newly
conscious of international relations and conspicuously insistent
that the Iamb of peace not be devoured by the wolves of cynical
diplomacy.

The scheme for a League of Nations adopted at Paris was, in
ideological terms, an expression on the international level of nine-
teenth<entury liberalism. It represented not so much a new set of
ideas as a new area of expression for old ideas. While it was not,
of course, a "pure” ideological product, the Covenant was pre-
dominantly liberal in tone.

This meant, first of all, that the League was intimately related
to the assumptions and values of democratic theory. 'Wilson, fol-
lowing the thesis laid down more than a hundred years earlier by
Immanuel Kant in his essay on Perpetual Peace ( Zum ewigen

gg SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

Frieden), believed that world peace could be established only by
a compact among democratically governed nations. Although the
"self-governing" qualification for new members specified in Arti-
cle 1 of the Covenant was in practice interpreted to mean only
that approximate independence was the standard of eligibility for
League membership, Wilson made it clear that he believed and
intended that this provision should define the League as an or-
ganization of free peoples, enjoying the right of democratic self-
government in their homelands. •

Only the free peoples of the world [Wilson asserted] can join the
League of Nations. No nation is admitted to the League of Nations
that cannot show that it has the institutions which we call free. No
autocratic government can come into its membership, no govern-
ment which is not controlled by the will and vote of its people. 10

This Kantian-Wilsonian position rested upon the assumption
that democracies, in contrast to autocracies, are inherently peace-
ful; “only a nation whose government was its servant and not its
master could be trusted to preserve the peace of the world.” 11
Common men are reasonable enough to abstain from rash hostili-
ties which impose intolerable suffering upon themselves, and
decent enough to respect the rights and interests of other nations.
War is caused by the selfish irresponsibility of rulers who can
reap the benefits while they make their enslaved peoples pay the
bitter price of war; when the people rule their nations, the
nations will live in peace.

This version of political liberalism called for external, as well
as internal, democracy. The League relied upon the beneficent
impact of public opinion upon international relations. The new
era was to be characterized by open diplomacy, the publication of
treaties, the investigation and dissemination of the facts concern-
ing international disputes, and the use of the League forum to
submit grave issues to the moral consciousness of free peoples.
Wilson envisaged the League as the ."court of public opinion” in
which the “conscience of the world” could render its verdict, “the
general judgment of the world as to what is right.”

“ Hamilton Foley, Woodrow Wilson’s Case for the League of Nat tons (Princeton:

University Press, 1925), p. 64.

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE LEAGUE OF NAT IONS 57

Nothing is going to keep this world fit to live in like exposing in
public every crooked thing that is going on. ... A bad cause will
fare ill, but a good cause is bound to be triumphant in such a
forum. You dare not lay a bad cause before mankind . 12

Through the democratic process, the peoples of the world
would control their governments and determine wise, peaceful,
and cooperative policies; through the League, they would control
the policies of other nations, injecting their wisdom and morality
into international relations and saving the peace of mankind from
the machinations of autocratic scoundrels.

Thus, the League rested upon two assumptions: that the age
of democracy had arrived, providing a sufficient number of
soundly democratic states to unite in an organization for main-
taining world peace; and that the democratic method of arriving
at agreement by civilized discussion rather than by coercive dicta-
tion could be applied to the relations of democratic states as well
as to those of individuals. Wilson had fought his war to make the
world safe for democracy; he created his League to make the
world safe by democracy.

The influence of nineteenth-century liberalism was evident,
secondly, in the emphasis upon national self-determination which
characterized Wilson's thinking about the organization of peace.
This doctrine, so revolutionary in its implications, was not by any
means absolutely dominant at the Peace Conference and it re-
ceived no formal expression in the words of the Covenant, but it
was nevertheless a major tenet of the Wilsonian faith. To the war-
time President, national self-determination ranked as an essential
corollary of democracy . 13 Just as the people had a right to govern
themselves within the national system, so the nations had a right
to govern themselves within the global system. The League was
strongly imbued with the Wilsonian conviction that the nation is
the natural and proper unit of world politics, and that the only
sound and moral basis for international order is a settlement
which enables peoples to achieve autonomous existence within a
system dedicated to the preservation of the independence and
sovereignty of nations. Sovereignty was not a naughty word for

** Ibid . pp 102,10*5

“Allred Cobban. National Srlf-Deltrminalion (Chicago: University of Chicago
Pten, n tj ) , p 20

gg SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

the League; it was a symbol of liberty in international relations,
comparable to democracy as a symbol ot domestic freedom.

In the League philosophy, the doctrines of democracy and self-
determination were foundation stones for a conception of a
natural harmony of interests. Given the proper division of man-
kind into political units based upon considerations of nationality,
peoples would tend to develop democracy intranationally and to
practice benevolent tolerance and cooperation internationally.
With the diffusion of democracy and the elimination of frustra-
tions stemming from denial of legitimate aspirations for national
self-determination, the principle of the natural harmony of na-
tional interests would operate to make international organization
at once possible and almost — but not quite — unnecessary. The
League would have work to do. It would have to bolster its own
foundations by providing devices of peaceful change which rea-
sonable statesmen could use to perfect the realization of the ideat
of equal justice to all nations. It would have to provide facilities
for peaceful settlement of disputes and for effective restraints
upon state behavior in the exceptional cases when the appeal to
reason and popular decency would not suffice. The League was
to supply the international need for an accessible common judge
and a method of coping with occasional outlaws who required
collective coercion rather than institutionalized reasonableness
for their control. But, by and large, the League’s function was to
be that of providing a framework for the working out of the
natural harmony of free peoples, of holding the ring while offer-
ing facilities for such minimal collaboration as national interests
might impel states to undertake.

This theoretical scheme was a logical projection of liberal
political thought. It tied on not only to nineteenth-century lib-
eralism but also to the liberal foundations which had been laid in
the two preceding centuries. It represented a choice of John
Locke over Thomas Hobbes. In the seventeenth century, Hobbes
had postulated a social conflict so profound that peace and order
could be achieved only under the iron rule of an all-powerful

Leviathan, ’ while Locke had believed in a natural social order
so nearly perfect that it required only a government with minimal
powers and functions to remedy its inconveniences. It represented
agreement with the eighteenth-century position of Adam Smith,

ESTABLISHMENT OT THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 59

who had relied mainly upon an “invisible hand” o£ nature and
only secondarily upon the artificial contrivances of government to
bring about harmonious relations among autonomous economic
entrepreneurs. In the domestic sphere, liberalism had come to
mean a limited government, performing important but minor
functions, supplementing but not interfering with the natural
harmonies which were assumed to exist in a society of self-inter-
ested but reasonable and decent men. In the international sphere,
liberalism as embodied in the League meant a limited collective
agency, supplying the relatively modest requirements of a system
of free peoples, enjoying national self-realization and democratic
self-government, for central direction and control.

The liberal ideal called for a government of law, in which
might should not make right but should be tamed and subordi-
nated to collective conceptions of right embodied in rules of law.
The League represented an attempt to realize this ideal in inter-
national relations — to establish the principle that force should be
used only in accordance with and in support of a legal order
designed to make justice and peace prevail in the world.

In short, all the basic concepts of nineteenth-century liberalism
— democracy, nationalism, natural harmony, law, limited govern-
ment, rationalism, discussion, consent — made their imprint upon
the Covenant of the League of Nations.

The Nature of the League

The international organization which derived from the insti-
tutional developments of the nineteenth century, the First
World War, the resultant political situation, and the prevalent
ideological climate was not intended to be a revolutionary or-
ganization. Its founders approved the basic principles of the tradi-
tional multistate system; they accepted the independent sovereign
state as the basic entity, the great powers as the predominant
participants, and Europe as the central core of the world political
system. They felt no sense of failure or inadequacy when they
created a League which did not represent a fundamental altera-
tion of the old system, since they regarded that system as basically
sound and workable. They experienced no uneasy sense of futility
when they undertook to get new results from an old system, for

JnTO I't-OWSHARI S

World War I vm luintm an iiiuiwuoh that war is the typical
and necessary result of the existence of sovereign states but a
warning that accidents can happen. The task to which they set
themselves was that of creating safety devices to obviate the repeti-
tion of such an unfortunate breakdown as had occurred in 1914.
The League was the manifestation of a reform movement, an
effort to improve the procedures and assist the operation of the
world political system.

Despite this essentially conservative attitude, a sense of pioneer
ing, of exhilarating adventurousness, accompanied the founding
of the League. This enterprise reflected an ambiguity of purpose,
a combination of politicians' reaction to victory and desire to naii
it down, with peoples’ reaction to war and desire to build 2
durable peace. Nevertheless, there was a general enthusiasm about
the modernization of the international system which had beer
effected. For the first time, a conscious effort had been made tc
create a systematic structural pattern foT the organization of inter
national relations; the multistate system had been equipped witf
a central institutional instrument of unprecedented utility. Th<
retention of the traditional foundational principles svas lesi
striking than the introduction of what might be decisive neu
developments in the conduct of international relations: organizer
consultation, publicized diplomacy, institutionalized pacific set
tlement, codified outlines of basic principles of international lav
and morality, collectivized security. International law was to bi
imbued with higher normative standards and international diplo
macy to be provided with greatly improved methods. The era o
legally unrestricted right to resort to war, neutral indifference tc
aggressive use of force, rival alliances and competitive armaments
and cynical manipulation of the balance of power was past. It
the new era, war anywhere would be everybody's business, dis
cussion at the bar of world public opinion would supersede
Machiavellian browbeating tactics, and the security of nation
would be a matter of collective responsibility.

The League, as designed at the Pans Peace Conference, com
bined much that was new with much that was old. The point i
that it was intended to introduce radical changes in the operatioi
of the multistate system, rather than to accomplish or even ti

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 61

faith that the goals of peace and security were to be achieved not
by the revolutionary repudiation of sovereignty but by the fulfill-
ment of the constructive and cooperative potential of sovereign,
self-governing peoples.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Cecil, Lord Robert, A Great Experiment, New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1941.

Foley, Hamilton, Woodrow Wilson's Case for the League of Nations,
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1923.

Salter, J. A., Allied Shipping Control: An Experiment in International
Administration, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921.

Sweetser, Arthur, The League of Nations at Work, New York: Mac-
millan, 1920. ;

Walters, F. P., A History of the League of Nations, >London: Oxford
University Press, 1952, Vol. I, Chaps. 1-5. •

Zimmern, Alfred, The League of Nations and the Rule of Law, 1918-
1935, London: Macmillan. 1936.

CHAPTER

The Origins of the
United Nations System

In the fall of 1939, Europe was the scene of the opening of
hostilities which were destined to engulf the world. Only twenty
years after the conclusion of a "war to end war” and “to make
the world safe for democracy,” and the establishment of a League
to keep the peace, the forces of totalitarianism, international dis-
organization, and national irresponsibility produced the greatest
and most disastrous of conflicts — World War II.

This total collapse of world order produced not so much a
sense of the futility and hopelessness of international organization
as a vivid awareness of the need for and a Tesolute determination
to achieve an improved system of international organization. It
became clear that the modem world had developed the habit of
responding to catastrophe by intensifying its quest for effective
organization.

The direct lines of origin of the United Nations may be traced
to wartime declarations of intent to establish a postwar organiza-
tional system. Early statements by anti-Axis leaders were marked
by a studied vagueness, but by October 1943, at Moscow, the
Governments of the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union, and
China were prepared to issue a clear statement of resolve to create
a general international organization. Significant differences of ap-
proach to the problem remained, but the basic issue was settled;

THE ORIGINS OF THE UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM 63

after the Moscow Conference, there was no open questioning of
the principle that a new organization should be formed.

The war years were marked by an unprecedented volume of
plans and proposals for postwar international agencies. From non-
governmental sources came suggestions ranging from the utopian
blueprints of idealistic dreamers to the carefully considered pro-
posals of well-organized groups of experts. Official consideration
of the problems and possibilities of postwar organization was
seriously undertaken, particularly in the United States and
Britain. Secretary of State Hull initiated American preparatory
work almost immediately after the war began in Europe, and was
responsible for the most concentrated and elaborate study of
international organization ever conducted by a government. 1
Although draft plans had been developed as early as July 1943,
the American planning machinery did not go into high gear until
after the Big Four placed their order for a general international
organization at the Moscow Conference; in the months that fol-
lowed, intensive preparations were carried out.

The actual construction of some parts of the projected inter-
national system took place during the period of blueprinting. A
number of temporary agencies, most notably the United Nations
Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, were set up in 1943
and subsequently, in order to perform essential tasks related to
the war and its immediate aftermath. The process of establishing
permanent bodies which would fit into the general system of post-
war organization began with the convening of the United Nations
Conference on Food and Agriculture at Hot Springs, Virginia, in
May 1943, which laid the foundations for the Food and Agri-
culture Organization. In 1944, the establishment of the Inter-
national Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Recon-
struction and Development was initiated at the Bretton Woods
Conference, and the constitution of the International Civil Avia-
tion Organization was drafted at Chicago.

The decision to proceed piecemeal in the building of the post-
war system reflected the belief that governments were ready to
commit themselves in regard to economic, social, and technical

‘The fascinating story of this enterprise is told in Postwar Foreign Policy
Preparation, i9)9-l915, Department of State Publication 35SO (Washington:
Government Printing Office, 1919).

matters even though they were not yet prepared to make perma-
nent political arrangements, and that the gravity of the economic
and social problems which would exist at the end of the war made
it important to have agencies fully established and ready to go to
work on those problems without delay. In addition, these organ-
izational conferences were regarded as valuable trial runs; a
supreme effort to negotiate the basis of world order was impend-
ing, and it was felt that preliminary negotiations on relatively
noncontroversial matters would test the possibilities, reveal the
difficulties, and facilitate the success of international cooperation
in the creation of a new organization for peace and security.’

The period of planning and experimental building of periph-
eral agencies merged into the period of major construction on
August 21, 1944, when the Dumbarton Oaks Conversations be-
gan in Washington. Representatives of the United States, the So-
viet Union, and the United Kingdom participated in the first and
most important phase of these talks, while China joined Ameri-
can and British delegations in the second phase. In secret and
informal negotiations at the technical level, the great powers ex-
changed views, hammered out compromises, identified differences
which would require resolution at higher political levels, and pro-
duced a set of proposals which described the major outlines of a
world organization for the future.*

Progress was made in filling the most notable gaps in the
Dumbarton Oaks Proposals at the Yalta Conference in February
1945, where Churchill and Stalin accepted a text on voting ar-
rangements in the Security Council presented by Roosevelt, and
the leaders of the Big Three agreed on the basic principles which
should characterize a supplementary chapter on trusteeship. An
embarrassing issue which had been left over from Dumbarton
Oaks, where the Soviets had dumfounded their fellow-delegates
by Insisting that the sixteen constituent republics of the USSR
should have separate voting rights in the projected organization,
was resolved by an agreement that the United States and Britain
would support a Soviet request that two of them, the Ukraine and
Byelorussia, be granted this peculiar status. The Big Three, con-

•Ibid., p. MS.

■For the text of the Dumbarton OaV* proposals, tee ibid, pp. 611-619

THE ORIGINS OF THE UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM 65

sidering that the stage was set for the great organizational effort,
agreed to summon a general conference of the anti-Axis coalition
at San Francisco bn April 25, 1945. » '

Two additional conferences were important in preparing the
way for the meeting at San Francisco. In February and March
1945, the United States consulted at Mexico City with its fellow-
members of the Inter-American system, in order to gain support
for the Dumbarton Oaks scheme and to promote the formulation
of a general hemispheric position on questions of international
organization, * especially those involving the status of regional
systems. A Committee of Jurists, representing virtually all the
nations which were to participate in the San Francisco Confer-
ence, met in Washington in March and drafted a Statute for a
judicial agency, to be submitted to that Conference.

The climactic event in the long process of building the new
world organization was the United Nations Conference on Inter-
national Organization at San Francisco. Here, representatives of
fifty nations which were more or less closely identified with the
still unfinished struggle to defeat the Axis Powers assembled in a
meeting that was history’s nearest approach to a global constitu-
tional convention. In two months of arduous negotiation and
debate, they created the Charter of the United Nations and its
integral supplement, the Statute of the International Court of
Justice, out of the Dumbarton Oaks and Yalta proposals of the
great powers, the draft Statute supplied by the Committee of
Jurists, and the plethora of supplementary papers and amend-
ments produced at the Conference by both great and small states.'
The formal completion of mankind’s most ambitious interna-
tional structure was celebrated on June 26, 1945, with the signing
of the Charter. 4

Only the final stages remained to be completed. The world’s
new ship had been ordered at the Moscow Conference, 'designed
primarily in the United States and Britain, and constructed at a
series of ersetherenees culminating at San Francises. Jto»; it :>as
fitted out for sailing by a Preparatory Commission meeting in
London; delivery was accepted by the purchasers on October 24,
1945, the date when a sufficient number of ratifications had been

• The text of the United Nations Charter is printed in Appendix II.

gg SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

deposited to make the Charter effective; and it was launched on
the perilous international seas on January 10, 1946, when the
first session of the General Assembly commenced in London.

Sources of the United Nations

As in the case of the League, the United Nations reflected the
influence of a variety of formative factors. It was not simply a
brainchild of idealists, a contrivance of nationally-oriented states-
men, a flowering of historically-planted seeds, or an excrescence
upon the surface of contemporary world politics. It was all these
things and more.

The influence of past developments in international organiza-
tion was clearly evident. The major structural outlines which had
been evolved in the nineteenth century were transmitted to the
United Nations through the League of Nations, and that first
great experimental system of the twentieth century contributed
advances and modifications in organizational principles, worked
out in its own experience, to its successor. The United Nations
could be described, with considerable justification, as a revised
version of the League. Many of its features were indicative of
conscious effort to avoid the deficiencies of the previous world
organization, to strengthen the institutional system at points
where weakness had become evident, and to project into the
future the progressive trends which had been initiated during
the interwar period. In both negative and positive fashion, the old
order influenced the creation of the new.

The United Nations system also drew upon the past in the
sense that it simply adopted, without fundamental alteration,
significant segments of the pre-existing complex of international
machinery. Such special-purpose agencies as the Universal Postal
Union, the International Telecommunication Union, the Inter-
national Labor Organization, and the League's organ for inter-
national drug control were destined for integration in the new
network. The Permanent Court of International Justice was
formally superseded by a new agency, with a revised title, but
the modifications in the Statute and the technical dissociation of
the two judicial bodies were not significant enough to break the
effective institutional continuity of the World Court. Thus, a

THE ORIGINS OF THE UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM 67

century of organizational development bequeathed to the United
Nations not only a pattern of ideas, a collection of object lessons,
and a supply of used building materials, but also a group of work-
ing institutions which were durable enough for continued opera-
tion.

In a more specific sense, the United Nations was shaped by the
influence of American planning and leadership. The primacy of
the United States in this enterprise derived only in part from this
country’s unequaled weight in the scales of military and eco-
nomic power. 3t depended also upon the world-wide prestige of
America’s wartime President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who died
before the San Francisco Conference began but was nevertheless
the spiritual father of the United Nations in much the same sense
that Woodrow Wilson had been the symbol of creative idealism in
1919. American predominance was related to the fact that the
United States Government had had the opportunity, resources,
and disposition to undertake the elaborate preparations which
placed it in a unique position to offer guidance and leadership.

The deliberations at San Francisco reflected the interaction of
national policies and viewpoints which were predominantly
shaped by considerations of national interest and ambition. There
was a great deal of talk about the objective requirements for cre-
ating an effective world order. Some of it was sheer hypocrisy, a
kind of rhetorical camouflage for the pursuit of national goals.
Some of it was meaningful, in the limited sense that governments
tended to identify the purposes of serving national interest and
achieving global order. But there is little evidence that delegates
were either prepared to treat the ideal of building an adequate
institutional structure as a consideration overriding national
interest, or able to emancipate themselves from conceptions of the
universal interest which were rooted in national biases. The Con-
ference was not divided between pure national partisans and dis-
interested exponents of a global ideal; nationalist goals and inter-
nationalist aspirations were almost indistinguishably compounded
in the positions of all the participating governments, which dif-
fered mainly in the degree of internationalism incorporated in
their conceptions of national interest and in their ability to make
their viewpoints prevail in multilateral diplomacy.

The position of the United States was peculiarly complex, and

SWORDS INTO P 1.0 U' 5 II

for that very reason exceptionally influential. Tlic proposals of
the American Government necessarily represented a mixture of
ideas of national interest and conceptions of the essential princi-
ples of international organization, with provisions included pri-
marily to avoid the danger of provoking the Senate to veto
American membership in the United Nations. The singular im-
portance of ensuring the full participation of the, United States
in the new system impelled foreign statesmen at San Francisco
to give weight not only to their own national claims and con-
ceptions of world order, but also to the requirements Tor meeting
the problems posed by the domestic political complexities of the
United States. America's influence was based upon the cogency of
its proposals, the positive force of its diplomatic strength, and the
negative factor of its domestic political uncertainties. ;This com-
bination of factors was effective in bringing about the adoption of
a Charter which was fundamentally based upon principles ad-
vocated by the United States. . . • • •

In broader terms, a dominant role in the creation of the United
Nations was played by the £lite class of gTcat powers — including
the United States, the Soviet Union, and Britain, and, in the
second rank, France and China. The Big Three had borne the
brunt of the military struggle, and would obviously, constitute a
power oligarchy in the postwar world. Considering the require-
ments of international security, it was clear that the collaboration
of the military giants was vital to the United Nations. Consider-
ing the possibilities of meeting this condition, it was clear that
the experience of great posver cooperation during the war, and
particularly the intimate and systematic pooling of effort in
which the American and British partners had engaged, offered a
potential basis for the creation of the coalition of power which
was essential for the future success of the United Nations.

The great powers were keenly aware of their corporate in-
dispensability, and were inclined to .make the most of it. They
had functioned as a kind of Global Executive Committee in pre-
paring the blueprints for adoption at San Francisco, and they
continued in this role at the Conference. Although formal equal-
ity and a two-thirds voting rule prevailed, the informal collegium
of the Big Five, operating behind the scenes at San Francisco, had
the ultimately decisive voice in the formulation of the Charter.

THE ORIGINS OF TIIF UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM 69

The influence of the great powers was not confined to their
collective solidarity against unacceptable alterations of the Dum-
barton Oaks-Yalta proposals. Their disagreements were as signifi-
cant for the work of the San Francisco Conference as their agree-
ments; indeed, at San Francisco and afterward, lesser states were
never sure whether they should be more frightened of great power
solidarity or of great power conflict. A complex pattern of diver-
gencies of interest and viewpoint among the major states appeared
at the Conference; if the USSR precipitated crises by insisting
upon a more extensive veto right than the other great powers
favored, the United Kingdom was equally at odds with its col-
leagues in regard to colonial questions. In the final analysis, the
great powers left their imprint upon the Charter by negotiating
compromises among themselves as much as by handing down dic-
tates to their less potent allies.

Emphasis upon the hegemonic position of the Big Five should
not be allowed to obscure the "democratic” aspect of the San
Francisco Conference. Although the rank and file members of the
wartime United Nations coalition had no significant share in
shaping the preliminary drafts, except the provisional Statute of
the International Court of Justice, they were permitted to make
the San Francisco Conference an occasion for doing a great deal
more than simply smiling politely and signing on the dotted line.
They may have been expected to show more humility and acquies-
cence than they actually exhibited; in fact, they made the Con-
ference a spirited affair, submitting amendments and counter-
proposals with abandon, participating vigorously in debates, and
bravely challenging their great power betters.

By and large, the small states contributed constructively and
realistically to the drafting of the United Nations Charter. This
was not a foreordained result of the relative freedom of participa-
tion which they enjoyed. Small states are not necessarily the saints
of the international community; if great nations are inclined to
abuse their strength by behaving dictatorially, small ones are
often tempted to abuse their weakness by behaving irresponsibly.
But many small state representatives at San Francisco displayed
a high degree of statesmanship. They did not challenge the prin-
ciple of great power leadership. Indeed, they welcomed it and
relied upon it. but they made gteat and somewhat successful

70 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARFJ

exertions to modify it, and to confine its expression within toler-
able bounds. There were definite limits beyond which the small
states could not go in fighting for their conceptions of a new
world order, but they made die most of their opportunities. In
the final result, the United Nations Charter was to a surprising
extent a “hammered -out” document, the product of the most ex-
tensively multilateral debate ever held for the shaping of the
broad outlines of the world political system, and the reflection of
the best ideas on international organization and the best com-
promises on points of national conflict that the statesmen of fifty
nations could produce.

Finally, the Charter was influenced by the opinion, the psy-
chological state, and the aspirations of millions of common and
uncommon men in many of the states which were anticipating
their approaching victory in the terrible global war. The phrase,
"We the peoples of the United Nations,” with which the Pream-
ble of the Charter began, was something more than a cynically
adopted euphemism. The Conference was conducted in an un-
precedented glare of publicity, and under the pressure of popular
demand for a vigorous attack upon the evils of international life.
The American representatives, for instance, were constrained to
give attention to the surge of idealistic enthusiasm for a co-
operative approach to world order which was expressed in the
press and other organs of public opinion, as well as to conservative
fears of national embarkation upon new ventures. If they felt the
breath of isolationist Senators upon their necks, they also heard
the voices of the internationalist consultants, representing leading
American private associations, who had accompanied them to
San Francisco. The people never speak with absolute clarity, nor
do they ever command implicit obedience, even in a mature
democratic nation; but the men of San Francisco felt the domi-
nant popular mood of support for an enterprising effort to build
a decent world, and were influenced by it as never before in the
history of international diplomacy.

To some extent, the concessions to idealistic public opinion
were insubstantial, consisting more of verbal decoration than of
genuine strengthening of the plan for a new organization. For
instance, pressures for endowing the United Nations with com-
petence in the field of human rights were met by multiplying

THE ORIGINS OF THE UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM 71

references in the Charter to the objective of promoting human
rights, rather than by providing clear authority and effective
means for the development of an international guarantee of the
rights of man. But it is doubtful if the response to popular ideal-
ism was much more deficient in substance than the idealism it-
self; the articulate public willed the end but it did not with equal
clarity will the means, and it may have been better satisfied by
the drafting of glowing phrases than it would have been by the
adoption of provisions essential to the genuine effectuation of the
ideals which it espoused. In large measure, the impact of public
opinion upon the Charter took the form of ideological inflation.

The United Nations Charter was the composite product of
past experience in the building and operation of international
institutions, wartime planning, great power and particularly
American leadership, intensive negotiation amid an intricate
pattern of national disagreements and conflicts of interest, and
popular pressures for realization of the desperate demand and
noble aspiration for a just and durable peace.

The Nature of the United Nations

The chronological setting of the San Francisco Conference
offers a significant clue to the nature of the United Nations.
When the Conference began, victory for the United Nations
coalition seemed certain, but not necessarily imminent. In fact,
Germany surrendered during the drafting of the Charter, but
Japan held out for more than two months after the conclusion of
the Conference. The construction of the new world organization
before the end of the war was a deliberate act of policy, deter-
mined primarily by the United States. This decision seems to
have represented a sophisticated attempt to capitalize upon the
advantages and avoid the disadvantages of the traditionally close
association between great wars and great projects of international
organization. Cordell Hull, the leading proponent of this decision
in the United States Government, emphasized the importance of
early action to avoid the danger that postwar domestic disunity
on foreign policy would imperil the whole project; if the Con-
ference were delayed until after the close of hostilities, Hull
warned, “peoples in all the democracies will be scattered in every

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

direction under every sort o£ discordant influence: . . . As a
result, nothing will be more impossible at that belated stage than
for a country like mine to pursue a suitable postwar program and
rally and unite all essential forces in support of it.” 5

While Hull stressed the danger that Americans would drift
apart, another peri! was that the major allies would drift ’apart.
Wartime coalitions are notorious for their tendency toward disso-
lution after their military functions have been discharged, and
there were already alarming signs of a break in the tenuous co-
operation between the Soviet Union and the United States. If
the grand alliance for war was to be preserved as a grand alliance
for peace, it seemed that there was no time to be lost.

The timing of the Conference was planned not only to take
advantage of wartime unity within nations and among allies,’ but
also to avoid creating an unnecessarily close relationship between
the United Nations and the peace settlement. Here was an ob-
vious effort to profit from the mistakes of the founders of the
League of Nations. The League had been handicapped by the
tic between the Covenant and the Treaty of Versailles; critics of
the League, especially in Germany and the United States, had
made the most of the contention that the organization was an
instrument for upholding a dictated and unjust peace, and its
most idealistic supporters had suffered from qualms of conscience
in the matter. The United Nations Charter was to embody the
legal principles and operative mechanisms of the approaching
peaceful era, and although the organization would necessarily
have to function within the framework of the settlement between
victors and vanquished, it would be spared the unfortunate sym-
bolism of identification with an act of military triumph which had
plagued the League. This purpose was promoted not only by
formulating the Charter in advance of treaties of peace, but also
by incorporating in it provisions explicitly excluding the organi-
zation from concern with the treatment of the defeated States of
World War II*

Thus, the United Nations was purportedly designed as an
instrument of justice and orderliness in international relations,

•ISd Sr' , “ ’«*• >«•> ■ n. w.

THE ORIGINS OF THE UNITED NATIONS MS 1 EM '•>

an agency ofthe World community at large— notas an adjunct of
a’ victorious' military coalition. •

The United Nations was put forward',- again for psychological
reasons,' as a decidedly new organization, rather than as a revived
and remodeled League of Nations. In fact,- its linkage with the
earlier institutional system was quite close, and sensible steps were
taken to make the United Nations in some) respects the legal heir
of the defunct League. The understatement of this bond of con-
tinuity with: the League was a tactic designed to avoid offending
the Russians, who had been alternately distrustful of, disil-
lusioned with, and outraged by the old organization, and the
Americans, who would have found it embarrassing to join an
organization from which they had so long made it a cardinal
point of national policy to abstain. 'The general attitude of the
United States toward the organizational past was well illustrated
by a passage in the report of the American representatives to the
London Conference, in November 1945, for the creation of t e
United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organiza-
tion (UNESCO):

It was very strongly the opinion pi the [American] Delegation that
the new Organi.ation should be tpnceived ot as a new smt “ the
work o£ international collaboration and that nothing 1 i
or personnel should relate it directly to earlier undertakmgs m ns
field. 7

Moreover, the League was associated with creeping
and ultimately disastrous failure. It was the considered judgment
of the founders of the United Nations that it was wortliwl de to
sacrifice the possibility of creating a popular sense of historiml
perspective and awareness of evolutionary continuity in uu
national organization in favor of stressing the newness
that had been turned, the hopeful freshness of the Bart that . was
being made. Thus, the United Nations was discourteous toward
its ancestors, but solicitous of enthusiasm support ^

The adoption of the Charter represented the ""P 1 ™
a fundamental decision which had been expressed sn the Mmo
Declaration of 1913s the decision to establish a general interna

■T„, n«,n,„ he.ee, Sl.le Dep.,»en,

BO {Washington: Government Printing Office. 1916). • P

74 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

tional organization, world-wide in membership and scope. The
old debate between the proponents of universaltsm and regional-
ism had raged during the war, and the choice in favor of the
former concept was made in the face of Prime Minister Church-
ill’s pronounced preference for building the new order on the
foundation of regional groupings. The Charter made concessions
to the possibility that regional agencies might play important
supplementary roles, in accordance with the demands of many
nations which placed a high value upon actual or potential re-
gional associations, but its primary feature was the establishment
of a structural pattern of international organization which em-
phasized the unity, rather than the compartmentalization, of the
modem world.

The United Nations was created as a general organization in
the additional sense that it was to deal with a comprehensive
range of subject matter. The world was its parish, and all the
problems of mankind which required international attention were
to fall within its area of concern. The Purposes of the United
Nations, stated in Article 1 of the Charter, related to the promo-
tion of a great variety of political, economic, social, cultural, and
humanitarian objectives. The breadth of its intended sphere of
activity was attested by the designation, in Article 7, of the Eco-
nomic and Social Council and the Trusteeship Council as "prin-
cipal organs,” along with the General Assembly, the Security
Council, the International Court of Justice, and the Secretariat.
The generality of the United Nations in this sense represented a
continuation of one of the most prominent trends which had
emerged in the operative experience of the League, and a flat
rejection of the Soviet concept of a United Nations which would
be almost exclusively concerned with political and security mat-
ters. Churchill tended strongly to sympathize with this Soviet
viewpoint; among the great powers, it was the United States
which stood out for a broad definition of the new organization's
functional sphere.* American leadership in regard to this issue
struck a responsive chord in the hearts of statesmen at San
Francisco representing peoples whose miseries in this life were
patently too overwhelming to permit them to wax very enthusias-

• Cf. Edward R. Stetiiniut, Jr., Rooirortt and the Ruoiani (Garden Citr. Double-
day. I9«) . pp. 17, 63. S16. '

THE ORIGINS OF THE UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM 75

tic over a mere collective security agency. The representative o£
Mexico undoubtedly expressed the hopes o£ millions when he said
at one of the closing sessions at San Francisco:

The Charter is not only an instrument of security against the hor-
rors of war. It is also, for the peoples who have been fighting to
uphold the principles of human dignity, an instrument of well-
being and happiness against the horrors of a peace without hope,
in which men would be subjected to humiliating privations and
injustices. “Blood, sweat, and tears" comprised the glorious but
provisional rule of war. It must not become the rule of peace.®

The bold definition of the terms of reference of the United
Nations was not accompanied by a decision in favor of a highly
centralized, tightly integrated institutional structure. Function-
ally speaking, the United Nations system was set up as a kind of
loose confederation of international agencies. In contrast to the
League, which had in theory and, to a lesser degree, in practice
imposed central direction and control upon the operation of
agencies in nonpolitical fields, the United Nations was committed
to the concept of the coexistence of a “hub” organization and a
group of autonomous “Specialized Agencies," looking to the
United Nations proper for cooperation and guidance but enjoy-
ing essential freedom of action in their respective fields. This
principle of decentralization modified by persuasive coordination
but not authoritative control from the center was neither pre-
cisely defined nor exclusively applied in the Charter. An inde-
terminate amount of responsibility for the actual conduct of co-
operative activities in nonpolitical fields was vested in the major
organs of the United Nations and their directly subordinate
bodies, rather than being delegated to the peripheral Specialized
Agencies of the new system. No one could say exactly what and
how much was supposed to be done by the United Nations it-
self, or how much control should be exercised over the autono-
mous agencies by the central organization. Nevertheless, it was
clear that the United Nations, which was at its birth confronted
with a number of already existing and operating international
institutions, was intended to supplement, support, and coordinate

’From a speech by Ejeqoie! Padilla. The United Selioni Conference on Zn/er-
noUonol Organization Selected Documents, Department of State Publication -190
(Washington Got eminent Printing Office. 19<G) . p. 932.

7(j SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

organizations working in economic, social, humanitarian, and
technical fields, rather than to dominate or absorb them. The
die was cast in favor of a complicated network of international
organizations, together constituting, the United Nations system.

Within the United Nations proper, as distinct from the more
comprehensive United Nations system, the division of functions
and responsibilities was much more precise. The League Cove-
nant had failed to delineate the respective spheres of the Council
and Assembly; in practice, the Council had assumed supervisory
authority over virtually the whole range of League activities,
although the Assembly had consistently enlarged its area of opera-
tion, and a move had been afoot shortly before the outbreak, of
World War II to remove the direction of most nonpolitical en-
deavors from the sphere of the Council. The San Francisco Con-
ference, acting in conformity with the trends which had prevailed
in the operation of the League, adopted the principle of separa-
tion of powers. It assigned primary responsibility for matters
relating to high politics and security to the Security Council, and
entrusted virtually all other responsibilities to the General As-
sembly, which was to be equipped with specialized Councils on
Trusteeship and Economic and Social matters, such other sub-
ordinate machinery as it might require, and facilities for estab-
lishing working relationships with the autonomous Specialized
Agencies. The United Nations was a characteristic product of the
era of specialization and division of labor.

In structural terms, the United Nations system may be de-
scribed as A vast complex of international machinery, all-em-
bracing in territorial and substantive scope, and characterized by
internal decentralization and specialization.

The establishment of the United Nations represented a re-
newed effort to achieve world peace through international or-
ganization, as distinguished from world government. Like its
predecessor, the League, the United Nations was dedicated to the
proposition that it makes sense to try to eliminate war by im-
proving the mechanisms and procedures of international relations
and promoting higher standards of national behavior. The cre-
ators of the new organization refused to accept the view that any-
thing short of a revolutionary act of transformation of the inter-

THE ORIGINS OF THE UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM 77

national system would prove to be an exercise in sheer futility.

The essentially conservative, reformist conception of the
United Nations dominated advance planning. It was clearly ex-
pressed in a statement issued by President Roosevelt on June 15,
1944:

We are not thinking of a superstate with its own police forces and
other paraphernalia of coercive power. We are seeking effective
agreement and arrangements through which the nations would
maintain, according to their capacities, adequate forces to meet the
needs of preventing war and of making impossible deliberate prep-
aration for war and to have such forces available for joint action
when necessary. . . . the hope of a peaceful and advancing world
will rest upon the willingness and ability of the peace-loving na-
tions, large and small, bearing responsibility commensurate with
their individual capacities, to work together for the maintenance of
peace and security. 10

The triumph of this point of view at San Francisco was evi-
denced by the declaration in Article 2, paragraph 1, of the
Charter that “The Organization is based on the principle of the
sovereign equality of all its Members.” This formal' provision
violated the facts of international life and overstated the con-
servatism of the United Nations scheme; nevertheless, it spoke
volumes about the doctrinal mood of the builders of the United
Nations. National sovereignty was not regarded as a millstone
fatally attached to the neck of humanity. It was not treated as an
evil spirit which had to be exorcised before mankind could hope
for salvation. The prevailing attitude toward this fundamental
principle of the traditional international system was expressed in
a speech by Senator Vandenberg during the debate on the Charter
in the American Senate, when he concluded a listing of various
powers generally regarded as aspects of sovereignty by declaring:

These things we toiled at San Francisco to preserve. We can effec-
tively cooperate for peace without the loss of these things. To co-
operate is not to lose our sovereignty. It is to use our sovereignty
in quest of the dearest boon which the prayers of humankind pur-
sue. 11

’* Postwar Foreign Policy Preparation, p. 269.
u Congressional Record, Vol 91, Part 6, p. 7957 (July 2S, 1945).

jg SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

There was in this mood nothing of the obsessive passion for
extirpating sovereignty, conceived as the root of all international
evil, which characterizes so much of the theoretical advocacy of
world government.

To some extent, verbal deference to the principle of sovereignty
represented a tactical effort to avoid stimulating conservative
opposition to the new international building project. In fact, the
Charter made unprecedented inroads into the preserve of sover-
eignty; for instance, all members of the United Nations except
the permanent members of the Security Council relinquished the
fundamental right not to be bound without their own consent
by accepting the obligation to permit the Security Council to act
on their behalf and bind them by its decisions. 12

However, the claim that the organization was respectful of the
concept of sovereignty was not a mere fiction. On the contrary,
the very ambitiousness of the Charter was in considerable measure
fictitious. The Conference displayed greater enthusiasm for de-
claring noble international ideals than for formulating national
responsibilities for aiding in the effectuation of those ideals, and
more willingness to state grand objectives of international organ-
ization than to equip and empower the United Nations to pursue
those objectives. If sovereignty was modified more significantly
than was explicitly admitted in Article 2, it was nonetheless sub-
jected to less drastic revision than was logically necessary for the
effective realization of the purposes stated in Article 1. The
Charter left no room for doubt that San Francisco had launched
a project for cooperation among independent states rather than
for consolidation of the nations under a kind of super-sovereign.

In spite of the fact that the founding fathers of the United
Nations adopted the same nonrevolutionary approach to their
task that their predecessors of 1919 had followed, their mood was
strikingly different. At San Francisco, it was not always clear
whether abstinence from charting a drastic transformation of the
international system resulted from a firm conviction that such ac-
tion was unnecessary, or from a reluctant admission that it was
politically impossible. The statesmen of Paris had radiated self-
assurance; there had been skeptics, of course, but by and large

“See Article* 24 and 25 of the Charter.

THE ORIGINS OF THE UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM

the makers o£ the League had seemed to entertain few doubts that
the world situation required only the limited ehanges which they
were instituting. The statesmen of San Francisco, on the other
hand, were more diffident, less enthusiastically certain of the
adequacy of their handiwork. After witnessing the debacle of the
League, they had to grapple with a disturbing doubt as to the
possibility that the old system could be made to work without
fundamental change. Although they proceeded on the assumption
that national sovereignty and world order could be made com-
patible, they could not escape the reminder of the old ada
about having and eating cake. The drafters of the Covenant had
chided themselves for acting too late; ruefully, they t g
about how easily they might have prevented the First World Wan
The drafters of the Charter were plagued by ,he £ear ' ' ‘5

were doing too little; apprehensively, they wondered whether
their half-measures would suffice to give the world peace and or
der in the future. . ._ • _ _r

We have heard a great deal about the «c«s.ve °P“ m ™ , 1 °
1945, and the "over selling" of the United Nattom to the publ, ;
It is true that public opinion was often treated '

count, of the brave new world which lay around the : ~ rner ffiat
was being rounded, but the atmosphere of the _San Franc C

ference and the American Senate was not suffused by a spirit of
naive optimism. The makers of the United Nation, wemc
scions of the discrepancy, a, the drafters of the Covenam . had no.
been, between the objective requirements and the subje P
sibilities of an effective world order. Then mood
faith that they were doing all that was necessary than o grim
determination that something-however ■">d'q“ate--m“t be
done to deal with the utgent problem of world wt'.lcya
been asked to choose their epitaph, they might «« ‘' av '
a paraphrase of President Truman's favortte; We done

“United Nations was erected upon **£££
sumption of great power unity, an assumption which w

in the Charter by protons eU^s^ng^th^^

sponsibilities and privileges for the big t
“ Articles 23. 27. <7, 80. 100. 108. 110.

SWORDS

INTO PLOWSHARES

the future structure of world order should rest upon such a foun-
dation prevailed without serious challenge -throughout the war
years. The great triumvirate of the allied bloc, Roosevelt, C mrc i-
ill, and Stalin, held in their hands the mighty forces needed to
win the war, and they could not conceive that the unity of their
nations would be less indispensable as the basis for a peace-
pteserving orgamtation than it had been as the foundation of a
war-winning coalition. Co-opting France and China as formally
equal members o£ the international £lite, the great powers pu
themselves forward as the corporate nucleus of the United Na-

tions.

No aspect of the United Nations has been more seriously mis-
understood or subjected to more tendentious and unperceptiye
criticism than this basic premise of great power unity and its
ramifications. It is vital to a genuine understanding of the United
Nations that the rationale of this underlying concept should be

graspeo.

In the first place, the adoption of Big Five unity as the foun-
dation stone has sometimes been regarded as a cynical device to
foist an international oligarchy upon the rank and file of the
United Nations. Instead of accepting international democracy,
the giants of the earth conspired to establish themselves as global
dictators. At San Francisco, so the argument runs, the great
powers forced their hegemony upon a world which had fondly
but vainly hoped for the dawn of a new day of international
equity and justice.

There is an element of truth in this accusation. Certainly, in-
numerable quotations can be adduced to prove that the wartime
leaders of the major powers were resolved to dominate postwar
international decisions and events, and that they were impatient
of interference by representatives of small states . 14 The great
powers maintained a solid front against the opponents of their
veto privilege at San Francisco, and used their predominant posi-
tion to force small state critics into reluctant acquiescence. It
would be difficult to describe as “international democracy in ac-
tion" the performance of Senator Tom Connally, an American
delegate at the Conference, when he dramatically informed his

“See. for instance, Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins (New York.
Harper, 1948) , pp. 710. 714. 717. 785. 852.

THE ORIGINS OF-THE UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM

fellow debaters that they could vote to kill the- veto if they liked,
but that theie would’be no United Nations if they did. 18
. Nevertheless, the argument misses the point. The great powers
gained no degree of. predominance at San Francisco which they
did not already possess.'The Charter registered power; it did not
confer it. If anything, the Charter understated the actual dis-
equilibrium of power between the great and small nations.
Viewed in terms of historical relativism, the striking thing about
the San Francisco Conference and the Charter which it formu-
lated is the unprecedentedly wide gap between the effective capac-
ity of the super-powers to dictate terms and the privileged status
with which they were in fact endowed. The phenomenal feature
of 1945 was not so. much that the great powers extracted conces-
sions to their strength as that they accepted far-reaching treaty
obligations for the responsible use of their strength. It is true that
they were somewhat hypocritical in their preference for the term,
"special responsibilities,” - in place of "special privileges. Yet, m
essence, the Charter scheme represented acceptance by the gr
powers of a framework of constitutional limitations within which
their de facto power was to be exercised. . ,

The most celebrated 'of the special privileges panted to the
Big Five, the right -of veto in the Secunty Conned, was not so
much an instrument of great power dictatorship over small state
as a factor injected into the relationships of the great poners
among themselves. Far from facilitating the corporate mana -
ment of the world by the giants, it introduced the potential 1 y
that the collegium of the powerful might be unable »«•«*“;
either dominate. the world or to save it. Thu was the central
point of the opposition to the veto at San Franc, sco. The leaders
of the attack opposed the veto on the primary gro
would hamstring effective collective aet.on under the leadersh p
of the Big Five-it would dash the hope that the Untted Nauon
could rely upon the great powers to act positively when the

ti TXLo. the small state, accepted die superiority of
the mighty as a fact of life. Their first objective " n,u

that all of the great power, would accept then place in the leader

- U.,„d .Yationi Cefem... "" ""-“y”'" <S ”

Nations information Or^an Stations. 19<5A6) . u,

52 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

ship corps of the new organization; in this they were successful,
and this fact was perhaps the major basis for the hope that the
United Nations would prove more effective than the League.
Their second objective was to constitutionalize the power of the
international oligarchy; toward this end, they achieved the incor-
poration in the Charter of a surprising array of limitations upon
arbitrary behavior, including die procedural brake upon collec-
tive decisions by the great powers which was implicit in the rule
of unanimity. Their third objective was to gain assurance that
the most powerful members would initiate and support positive
collective action within and on behalf of the organization in times
of crisis; in this respect, there were serious apprehensions of fail-
ure, based largely upon the fact that the veto rule foreshadowed
the possible paralysis of such undertakings.

All this adds up to demonstrate that the special position ac-
corded to the Big Five in the United Nations reflected not so
much a cynical insistence upon high-and-mightiness by the great
powers as a faltering effort to solve the dilemma of arranging for
great power leadership while erecting safeguards against unprin-
cipled dictatorship by the great powers.

Another common reaction to the establishment of the United
Nations upon the assumption of great power unanimity and col-
laboration has been expressed in terms of hindsighted criticism
of the intelligence of the statesmen who built their house upon
that foundation. Arguing in the abstract, critics suggest that only
fools could have been unaware of the plain lesson of history that
wartime coalitions tend to disintegrate after their military pur-
poses have been served, and that it is a law of international life
that the greatest states at any given time inexorably become the
bitterest rivals and most implacable foes. Arguing in more spe-
cific terms, they allege that only statesmen who were blind to the
real nature of Communist ideology and to the clear evidence of
Soviet aggressiveness could have been so stupid as to erect the
United Nations on the premise that postwar relations among the
great powers would be characterized by sweetness and light. The
new organization was founded on an assumption that was not only
invalid but was so patently invalid even in 1945, so the argument
goes, that those who adopted it revealed themselves as fatuous

Tilt OKtCINi OF Tilt UNITED NATION’S SVJTENt 85

idealists or soft-headed dupes of Communist hypocrisy who were
unable to evaluate objectively the facts of Soviet doctrine and
behavior.

Ignoring the fact that most critics who take this line Tcfraincd
from public exhibition of their superior prescience in 1915, we
can proceed to check the accuracy of their understanding of the
premise upon which the United Nations was established. Sound
wisdom would seem to dictate camion about jumping too easily
to the conclusion that the gentlemen of San Francisco were a pack
of extraordinarily ignorant fools.

h is true that the founding fathers proposed and proceeded to
build the United Nations upon the assumption of great j>ower
unity. As Secretary' Hull explained to Roosevelt. in transmitting
an early draft plan of organization:

The entire plan is based on two central assumptions:

First, that the four major powers [birr expanded to fisc) will
pledge themselves and will consider themsclses morally l>ound not
to go to war against each other or against any other nation, and to
cooperate with each other and with other peace loving states in
maintaining the peace; and

Second, that each of them w-jJJ maintain adequate fortes and will
be willing to use such forces as circumstances require to present or
supptesj all cases of aggression.**

However, the point of this assumption was no! that great power
cooperation tcouhl infallibly take place, but that there was no
hope for a peaceful world uulesi it did take place. Iliere is
abundant evidence that Anglo-American leaders were troubled
by fears that the Soviet Union would not be a reliable and law-
ful collaborator in the poMsvar world, even before but especially
alter the first rumbling* of the new Soviet expansionism l*egan
•o be heard in early 1915.

In a radio address cm April 9. 1911. Cordell Hull told the

SWORDS INTO n«» SK “"

lion must be built. 11 ,i

The Secretary of State «em on to point out .** djsaster^ ^

bsssTdoi Hamman in Moscow, ^P ht n * "“' “ San
dal circles in the fall oi 19M.» The weeks precedm !>« b
Francisco Conference were a period oE intensive ®

which British Foreign Seaetary Eden shared about t ie ^ p
tion. of the mounting evidence of Soviet untaendhn«w
Hull's analysis of the situation and prospects was clot,
the crucial planning stage in 1944, he assumed that
a deriding tote” » on the issue of fmoie world ° rdtr ' . " Mt

United Nations system would be possible with, and \\ , 0( j.
without, genuine collaboration among the great powers,
ing the USSR. He was keenly aware of the fact that boV ‘
operation could not be assumed, but would have to be ca
and patiently sought after and cultivated.” Although he >
tutbed by signs of Soviet straying from the course of pe a ^
cooperation, he adopted the philosophical attitude that sue i
viations would inevitably occur, and clung to the determiM ^
to exploit every possibility of maintaining unity for the 11 ^
which might be offered as a result of the pressure of
interest (not an assumed Soviet idealism) for continued co a ^
tion. Hull declined to assume either that Soviet adherence ^
pattern of future cooperation was inconceivable or that ,l
inevitable. He was certain that it was indispensable, and tbat^
duty of prudent statesmen was to do their best to obtain it- ^
This as the typical version of the basic assumption o ^
United Nations. The new organization would be able to f° nC 1

" The Htnotri of CardeU find. It. IS22-1S2S.

"Ifciii.p IKS.

-IfcM.pp US914G0 .OSU.PP-

***« 'Siltrt Millu, edw The Forrestal Diaries (Sere York: ' iking- 193 '

$« 41 ST-t*

•*Of> nt II l»si

•fhid pp lfi-,1. 1722

• (fad pp IMS, 1163 1169, I6S9. 16SI. 1705.

^ -SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

monized and unless they agree and a a together. This is the solid
foundation upon which all future policy and international organna-
tion must be built. 17

The Secretary of State went on to point out that disaster would
result from any serious split among the wartime allies, and that
“no machinery, as such, can produce this essential harmony and
unity.” 11 Hull has recorded that sober discussion of grave doubts
concerning Soviet intentions, confirmed and emphasized by Am-
bassador Harriman in Moscow, took place within American offi-
cial circles in the fall of 1944.” The weeks preceding the San
Francisco Conference were a period of intensive worrying, in
which British Foreign Secretary Eden shared, about the implica-
tions of the mounting evidence of Soviet unfriendliness. 20

Hull's analysis of the situation and prospects was clear. During
the crucial planning stage in 1944, he assumed that "Russia held
a deciding vote” 21 on the issue of future world order; an effective
United Nations system would be possible with, and impossible
without, genuine collaboration among the great powers, includ-
ing the USSR. He was keenly aware of the fact that Soviet co-
operation could not be assumed, but would have to be carefully
and patiently sought after and cultivated. 22 Although he was dis-
turbed by signs of Soviet straying from the course of peaceful
cooperation, he adopted the philosophical attitude that such de-
viations would inevitably occur, and clung to the determination
to exploit every possibility of maintaining unity for the future
which might be offered as a result of the pressure of Soviet self-
interest (not an assumed Soviet idealism) for continued collabora-
tion. Hull declined to assume either that Soviet adherence to a
pattern of future cooperation was inconceivable or that it was
inevitable. He was certain that it was indispensable, and that the
duty of prudent statesmen was to do their best to obtain it. 55

This was the typical version of the basic assumption of the
United Nations. The new organization would be able to function

" The Memoir, of Cordell Hull, II, 1S22-IJ23
“ Ibid , p 1323.

"Ibid , pp 1459-1460.

"See Walter Millu. ed. The Forreslal Diarie, (New Yotk: Viking. 1931), PP-
38-41. 47 48
"Op eil . II, 1464.

■ Ibid , pp 1659. 1722
* Ibid . pp 1465, 1468-1 469, 1639. 1631. 1703.

THE ORIGINS OP THE UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM 87

of war emanates from totalitarian governments, that war is caused
by the diabolical plots of ruthless dictators who are contemptuous
of human rights. The United Nations could be interpreted as an
attempt to equip the world for dealing with Hitlers — after Hiller
was already dead.

However, the United Nations was designed with an eye to the
future as well as to the past. In some respects, the new plan of
world organization was extraordinarily forward-looking. For a
world which habitually runs behind schedule in the development
of institutional devices for coping with its problems, which is
addicted to the collective policy of too little and too late, the
global community as represented at San Francisco showed a sur-
prising degree of concern for preventing the next instead of the
last war. The United Nations reflected a sharp awareness of the
developing significance of non-Europe3n peoples as full partici-
pants in world affairs. Whereas the League had not represented
a decisive break with the tradition of European-focmcd inter-
national politics, the new system was directed toward the prob-
lems of a world in svhich Europe would appear in drastically
shrunken, and Asia and Africa in greatly enlarged, proportions.
The Charter was decidedly futuristic in that it provided a basis
for the concentration of international statesmanship upon the
emergent issues relating to the liquidation of colonialism and the
pressure of newly self-conscious and self-assertive peoples for sta-
tus, development, and autonomy. Indeed, a case could be made
for the proposition that the creators of the Unites! Nations suf-
fered from abnormal farsightedness — that they visualized more
clearly, and tints made the new institutional system more appro-
priate to deal with, the potential causes of World War IV than
the probable causes of World War III. At any rate, the world’s
latest great enterprise in organttation featured an unparalleled
attempt to open tip the possibilities of long-range international
action to present the development of situations conducive to war,
as well x\ mote tcadiuaaal efforts to present war from growing
out of existent or imminent situations.

The United Nations system, like the League, found its philo-
sophical origins in liberalism. But it the liberalism which in-
ipitcd the League seas essentially a nineteenth <«miry phenome*

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

standing of the great war which occasioned its creation. If the
League had been designed to prevent the accidental First World
War, the United Nations was equally a product of retrospective
thinking about the causes of World War II. Looking back to the
outbreak of the second global conflict, “No one believed that we
had merely stumbled into the War of 1939; it had obviously been
deliberately planned. ...”** The conviction was strongly held
that the war had been brought about by the calculated decisions
of ruthless dictators that the situation was favorable for the reali-
zation of designs for world conquest. The Axis dictators’ miscal-
culations might have been averted, and their program of aggres-
sion indefinitely postponed, if the great powers which ultimately
resisted the Axis had been dearly aligned in advance in deter-
mined opposition to any breach of the peace. In a very significant
sense, the United Nations Charter, with its scheme for collective
peace-preserving action under the unanimous sponsorship of the
Big Five, represented the world’s belated prescription for pre-
venting the Second World War.

In still other respects, the United Nations was diaracterized
by a retrospective orientation. Close analysis of the collective secu-
rity provisions of the Charter leads to the suggestion that they
were designed with a view to dealing with future threats to the
peace by the same Axis powers which had launched World War
II. As Brierly has observed, the founders of the United Nations
clearly recognized that the veto power would make those provi-
sions inoperative against an aggressively-inclined member of the
Big Five; it cannot be supposed that they considered such elabo-
rate provisions necessary to prevent aggression by small states;
hence, they must have agreed upon the collective security arrange-
ments with a view to the possible resurgence of Germany and
Japan.* 8

Moreover, the emphasis in the Charter upon the promotion of
respect for human rights lends color to the suggestion that the
United Nations was built upon a conception hastily generalized
from immediately preceding experience; the view that the danger

"J L Brierly, "The Covenant and the Charter.” British yearbook of Inter-
national Law (London: Oxford University Press), 19-16. p, 91.

“The Law of Nations (tth ed; London: Oxford University Press. 1W9), pp-
280 285 ‘

THE ORICINS OF THE UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM 89

national organization when the San Francisco Conference ratified
the change from the minimalist conception of the function of
multilateral agencies to a kind of international New Dealism, an
adaptation of the welfare state philosophy to the realm of world
affairs.

This preliminary analysis of the nature of the system devised
at San Francisco provides no answer to the question of what kind
of organization the United Nations may ultimately become. The
perils of prediction in this field are well illustrated by the expe-
rience of the League of Nations; that experimental institutional
system did not turn out, in either its successes or its failures,
exactly as had been expected or intended by its originators. In
some respects, the League was less conservative than its constitu-
tional design; in others, it fell far short of realizing the poten-
tialities for transforming international relations with which it
had theoretically been endowed.

The difficulties of forecasting the development of an inter-
national organization were compounded in the case of the United
Nations by the fact that the San Francisco Conference postponed
the effort to conclude agreements on a number of vitally impor-
tant matters: the allocation of armed forces to serve the organiza-
tion, arrangements for control and limitation of armaments, a
scheme for the international protection of human rights, the pat-
tern of relationships between the United Nations and Specialized
Agencies, the territorial scope of the Trusteeship System, etc. In
these and other respects, the Charter was an unfinished document,
representing simply an agreement to seek agreement. In 1945,
not even the final form of the original structural design, much
less the course of evolutionary development or the fortunes of the
United Nations in its eflorts to fulfill its responsibilities, could
be confidently predicted.

A few men hoped, and a few others feared, that an embryonic
World government had been created. A few men hoped, and a few
others feared, that what had been fashioned was merely a man-
ageable tool for use by the representatives of sovereign states. The
world was not sure what it had created, and most men did not
particularly care; what they did care about was the result which
they were fumbling to achieve — a just and lasting peace.

WORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

non, the doctrinal foundation of the night-watchman state, the
liberalism which underlay the new system was the twentieth*
centUTy version, the theoretical support of the welfare state.

The new liberalism contrasted with the old in that it reflected
loss of confidence in the economic and social results of free-
wheeling individualism, and the substitution of reliance upon
governmental planning for the earlier faith in the manipulations
of the invisible hand postulated by Adam Smith. Applied to the
international sphere, this change meant a decline in optimism
concerning the results of the relatively nnregimented behavior of
free and nationally self-determined political entities, and rejec-
tion of the League’s heavy dependence upon natural harmonies
in favor of the principle that international order must be pro-
duced by deliberate contrivance and positive action. The old
liberalism had produced governments which guarded the arena
within which the principle of laissez faire operated, and which
intruded only to impose a bare minimum of regulation. The new
doctrine supported the assumption by governments of vastly ex-
panded functional responsibilities and a capacity for regulatory
intervention in many areas formerly considered outside the range
of their appropriate concern. Correspondingly, the Charter re-
flected a newly enlarged conception of the necessary and proper
role of international organization in world affairs: it envisaged for
the United Nations and Specialized Agencies a functional sphere
and an agenda of activity far more ambitious than that mapped
out for the League in 1919. The dominant assumption at San
Francisco was that international organization can do its job effec-
tively only if it is free to explore the wide-spreading economic,
social, and ideological root structure of the problem of war.

Just as the transformation of the role of government in the
modern world was a gradual process, unaccompanied by a con-
scious and abrupt shift in political philosophy, the League in
operation evolved toward the sort of international system which
was more explicitly defined at San Francisco. The conception of
international organization embodied in the Charter contrasted
much more sharply with that written into the Covenant than
with that actually inherited from the League system. Neverthe-
less, it was a profoundly significant event in the history of inter-

CONSTITUTIONAL
PROBLEMS
OF INTERNATIONAL
ORGANIZATION

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

SUGGESTED READINGS

Brierly, J. L., “The Covenant and the Charter," British Yearbook of
International Law, London: Oxford University Press, 1946.

Chase, Eugene P , The United Nations in Action, New York: McGraw-
Hill, 1950, Chap*. 2-4.

Goodrich, L. M., “From League of Nations to United Nations," Inter-
national Organization, February 1947, pp. 5-21.

Goodwin, Geoffrey L., Britain and the United Nations, New York:
Manhattan Publishing Co., 1957, Chap 1.

Report to the President on the Results of the San Francisco Con-
ference .... Department of State Publication 2349, Conference
Series 71, Washington: Government Printing Office, 1945.

CHAPTER

The Problem of Membership

The Nature of International Constitutional Problems

The problems confronted by international organizations may
be divided into two categories: constitutional problems — the
problems of international organizations, and substantive problems
— the problems with which the organizations are designed to
grapple. The first group consists of internal matters, related to
the management and functioning of the organizations, while the
second includes external issues requiring solution. Constitutional
problems are occasioned by the establishment of international
organizations; substantive problems are the occasions for the es-
tablishment of such agencies.

However definite the dividing line between these two classes
of problems may be in logic, it is not so in practice. The nature
and intensity of world problems determine the nature and scope
of organizational efforts, and thereby define the constitutional
problems which emerge. Decisions concerning the internal devel-
opment of international agencies are inevitably influenced by
external political considerations, and, conversely, the solution of
substantive political problems is affected by the degree of con-
stitutional development achieved by international organizations.
The j.\kp ^cnhlr-ip aunas ^atrnnt -hr -divfKrrd-

One of the major tasks of twentieth-century statesmanship is to
strike a balance between obsessive concern with institutional
problems, which makes international organization an end in it-

THE PROBLEM Op 'MEMBERSHIP

Membership as a Constitutional Problem

The problem of membership is clearly one of the basic consti-
tutional questions for international organization. The kind of so-
lution developed for this problem largely determines the nature
of an international agency, the position that it can claim, and the
role that it can play in world affairs. Membership policy offers
significant evidence concerning operative assumptions as to the
purpose of an institution, the type of functions expected from it,
and the kind of future development envisaged for it.

In general, two choices are open to the creators and managers
of international organizations. They may opt for universality, of
either a permissive or a compulsory nature, or they may choose
some brand of selectivity. If they take the latter course, the cri-
terion of selection assumes crucial importance. They may em-
phasize geographical factors, thus creating regional rather than
general institutions. They may apply a standard of the objective
importance of states in regard to matters within the organization’s
purview, thereby excluding all but great powers from a security
agency or all but leading maritime states from an ocean shipping
organization. Finally, membership policy may reflect qualitative
judgments of states. An organization may be conceived as an
association of members sharing a particular form of government
or economic system; thus, as we have seen, Wilson envisaged only
democratic states as members of the League. The ideal of cultural
homogeneity, or religious solidarity, or ethnic exclusiveness, or
community of historical experience, may dominate membership
policy, as in such groupings as the Arab League or the British
Commonwealth. The standard of judgment may relate to the
internal quality of a state; for instance, adherence to a certain
standard of respect for human rights may be regarded as a con-
dition of admission, as in the case of the Council of Europe. The
qualitative criterion may involve an evaluation of the actual or
prospective international behavior of a state; thus, the United
Nations purports to exclude states which are not "peace-loving.”
This type of exclusiveness has been sarcastically characterized as
a means of saying to "bad” states: “You are not worthy to be al-
lotted the privilege of keeping the rule* of our beautiful Cove-

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

self, and exclusive concentration upon substantive issues of cur-
rent world politics, which neglects the building of an adequate
institutional apparatus for international relations. It is good that
theorists and idealists should remind statesmen that the constitu-
tional problems of international organization should be handled
with a view to the creation of an effective system of order, and
that statesmen should insist upon the importance of resolving the
conflicts and averting the dangers of contemporary world politics.
International organization is but a means to an end; however, it
cannot be an effective means unless it is in some degree treated
as an end in itself. To put it concretely, Western statesmen cannot
be expected to give higher priority to building a well-developed
United Nations system than to coping with the Soviet threat; but
they cannot expect the United Nations to become a useful in-
strument for dealing with present and future problems of inter-
national life unless their policy regarding its internal problems is
dictated by concern for its sound constitutional development
rather than for their own immediate political advantage.

Nowhere — in international organization ot in national govern-
ment— -are constitutional problems treated simply on their con-
stitutional merits. In the United States, positions regarding the
issue of states' rights are determined less by general conceptions
of an ideal federal system than by specific interests in the shaping
of policy concerning racial relations and economic regulation.
Ycf, in the final analysis, Americans are prepared to admit that
whatever is good for the United States is good for them. This
saving qualification does not exist in the international sphere.
The constitutional problems of international organization are
peculiarly subject to being treated in terms of their impact upon
national interests in particular political conflicts, rather than in
terms of their importance for healthy institutional development,
and no government is prepared consistently to accept the position
that whatever is good for the United Nations is good for itself.

Thus, as we analyze the constitutional problems of inter-
national organization, sve should keep in mind the fact tlt3t they
are inexorably related to the substantive problems of interna-
tional politics, and that their solution is a function of calculations
of political advantage as well as of srisdom concerning the requi-
sites of a system of world order.

THE PROBLEM OF MEMBERSHIP 97

In practice, the League did not hold to the Wilsonian inter-
pretation of the “fully self-governing” requirement for admission
stated in Article 1 of the Covenant, but treated tills stipulation
as a demand that new members have approximate sovereign in-
dependence rather than internal democracy. It began its life with
forty-two original members and quickly admitted six more at the
first session of the Assembly in 1920. The League attained its
maximum size in 1934, when it brought its formal membership
list up to sixty, although this figure included two states, Germany
and Japan, which had already given notice of withdrawal and
ceased actual participation. Admissions were not significantly off-
set by withdrawals until the middle 1930's, when a flight from
the League began; the final record includes twenty admissions,
seventeen withdrawals, and one expulsion, that of the Soviet
Union in 1939. At one time or another, virtually every state in
the world except the United States and Hedjaz was a member of
the League.

The League never formally accepted the principle of indis-
criminate universality which was espoused by Argentina at the
first Assembly,* and it did sometimes balk at the admission of
dubiously qualified or politically unpopular states, but, on the
whole, it sought to attract rather than to repel potential appli-
cants. This attitude of receptivity was symbolized by the develop-
ment of the practice of "admission by invitation," as an alterna-
tive to application by would-be members. 4 Beginning with the
first meeting of the Council, when Clemenceau presided with an
empty chair, vainly reserved for the United States, at his right,
the League was conscious that its success was jeopardized by the
defect of inadequate inclusiveness. As one observer said regarding
the first Council meeting: "As the afternoon wore on, the sun
which streamed across the Seine and through the windows cast
the shadow of the empty chair across the table. The shadow
lengthened that day and the days that followed until the League
died." ®

* Vc U||im, 4 Hutory of (V Leayue of I, 124

•See Atetiander \V RucUinai. "Adimulon of New Member*: The United
Niliom and the League of Nation*." I ntrt national Conrilitttiim, No. 4S0, April

I9S2, n* 101 160

* I hi* (iimment b* tdwin X. Jame* «« (juoteil in hi* obituary. Set* l or*

I ‘iit. DnrmUt 4 I9*»J

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

nant. Kindly go away and follow your own nasty inclinations!” 1

Controversy over membership questions is endemic in inter-
national organizations, and it is complicated by the fact that gen-
uine differences concerning the constitutional merits o£ principles
governing membership policy are subtly mixed with competing
claims based upon calculations of political advantage. From a
purely constitutional point of view, no principle can be singled
out as the "right one,” but the theoretical ideal might be formu-
lated as the rule of essentiality. According to this concept, mem-
bership policy should be rationally adapted to the functional pur-
poses of each specific institution. States should be accepted or
excluded, sought after as members or left alone, on the basis of
judgment as to whether their participation is essential to, or
incompatible with, the realization of the aims of the organization.
Following this rule, the membership of Norway, for instance,
might be deemed essential in a maritime shipping agency, de-
sirable but inessential in a general health organization, and im-
proper in an Asian regional system. This ideal standard chal-
lenges the dogmatism of champions of particular organizational
theories as much as the arbitrariness of politically motivated na-
tionalists.

Membership in the League

The League of Nations, which had gleamed as a great power
club in the eyes of some of its Allied fathers before the Paris Con-
ference, emerged from its birthplace as a voluntary association of
sovereign and a 1 most-sovereign or prospectively-sovereign en-
tities which had not been found on the ‘‘wrong” side in World
War I. It was clearly a general, not a regional, organization, and
was regarded as potentially, though not immediately or auto-
matically, universal in scope. Germany and the newly-established
Communist regime in Russia were deliberately excluded at the
start, however, the participation of all other great powers— and
ultimately, of the major states without exception — ■was generally
considered a vital necessity for the success of the League.*

TftPr 0 ? 1 * 0 ” / ro J n , Aroold j- Toynbee, in Royal Institute of International Affairs,
p j/" of ,he tea ® ie °f tfM ions (Nevr York: Oxford University Press, 19S6),

See Article I of the Covenant.

THE PROBLEM OF MEMBERSHIP 97

In practice, the League did not hold to the Wilsonian inter-
pretation of the “fully self-governing" requirement for admission
stated in Article 1 of the Covenant, but treated this stipulation
as a demand that new members have approximate sovereign in-
dependence rather than interna! democracy. It began its life with
forty-two original members and quickly admitted six more at the
first session of the Assembly in 1920. The League attained its
maximum size in 1934, when it brought its formal membership
list up to sixty, although this figure included two states, Germany
and Japan, which had already given notice of withdrawal and
ceased actual participation. Admissions were not significantly off-
set by withdrawals until the middle 1930's, when a flight from
the League began; the final record includes twenty admissions,
seventeen withdrawals, and one expulsion, that of the Soviet
Union in 1939. At one time or another, virtually every state in
the world except the United States and Hcdjaz was a member of
the League.

The League never formally accepted the principle of indis-
criminate universality which was espoused by Argentina at tlte
first Assembly,* and it did sometimes balk at the admission of
dubiously qualified or politically unpopular states, but, on the
whole, it sought to attract rather than to repel potential appli-
cants. This attitude of receptivity was symbolized by the develop-
ment of the practice of "admission by invitation,” as an alterna-
tive to application by would-be members. 4 Beginning with the
first meeting of the Council, when Clemenceau presided with an
empty chair, vainly reserved for the United States, at his right,
the League was conscious that its success was jeopardized by the
defect of inadequate inclusiveness. As one observer said regarding
the first Council meeting: “As the afternoon wore on. the sun
which streamed across the Seine and through the windows cast
the shadow of the empty chair across the tabic. The shadow
lengthened that day and the days that followed until the League
died " »

• Vr Waheti. A Hitlory of the Isa^ue of S'eltnm. 1. 124.

•Vt MH., a ruler W Rmlnnsll. "Ailmftu’on of New Sfembcrv The Unilerl
Xaiioti* mil ihr (.eigne of N»iioo».“ International Conciliation, So. 4 SO, April
10'?. |*p 104 Ifi'l

• 1 hi, (tHrrmrni hr (>l«ln l_ )jmn ni quoifJ in hit nbituarr, ,Vre > or*

fkrmtOtr 4 I9U

SWORDS INTO PlOW SHARES

By and large, the membership problem of the League was rec-
ognized as the problem of the empty chair. The great experiment
could work only if virtually universal support, and certainly the
support of all the great powers, could be enlisted. This condition
was never fulfilled The United States never joined the League;
Germany was a member, practically speaking, only from 1926 to
1933; the USSR joined in 1934 and was expelled five years later;
Japan announced withdrawal In 1933 and Italy in 1937. Only
Britain and France were continuous great power members of the
organization; in the most critical situations, the League's most
important pieces of furniture were largely unoccupied. Official
membership lists did not tell the whole story. Some members were
formally in but virtually out, while the United States was for-
mally out but, on some occasions, virtually in. On balance, how-
ever, corrections to take into account the relativity of member-
ship did not improve the statement of the League's position. The
unsolved membership problem of the League was that of getting
the right states in and of keeping them in as active, working
members, making essential contributions to its successful func-
tioning.

Membership In the United Nations

In accordance with the Moscow Declaration of 1913, the
United Nations was designed to be a general, or quasi-universal,
international organization, embracing the “peace-loving" states
of the world. Under the terms of the Charter, fifty-one original
members took their place in the organization, and provision was
made for admission of other states by concurrent decision of the
Security Council and the General Assembly.®

The original membership list of the United Nations was a
compilation of the actual participants in the anti-Axis coalition
in World War II, states which were willing to adhere nominally
to that grouping, and other entities which were admitted to that
company as the result of political bargaining among the leading
powers. The adjectival qualification, “peace-loving,’* was not
taken seriously except as a basis for excluding the defeated Axis
states and Franco Spain, their largely nonbelligerent supporter

•Tor membership provision* of fhe United Nations Charter, see Articles S 6.

THE PROBLEM OF MEMBERSHIP 99

and protege. Although the new institution was, in principle, an
association of sovereign states, it followed the precedent of 1919
in admitting as original members several entities which did not
measure up to that technical standard. The drafters of the Charter
were clearly willing to contemplate the voluntary abstention or
withdrawal of states and the deliberate refusal of the organization
to accept candidates for membership, but they also entertained
the view that the probable destiny of the United Nations was to
become a substantially universal organization and that its proper
role was to serve as the central agency of the entire family of
nations. The great powers were the vitally essential members,
and the necessity of avoiding the reproduction of the League's
melancholy picture of the lengthening shadows of their empty
cliairs was the ultimately decisive factor in the negotiations at San
Francisco. A normal trend toward universality was assumed; the
Big Five simply reserved to themselves the right, through their
veto-grip on the Security Council, to regulate the tempo of the
movement in that direction.

A striking feature of the early history of the United Nations
has been the near unanimity of states in seeking membership.
As of Autumn, 1955, nine new members have joined the ranks of
the original fifty-one, and twenty-one applicants stand impatiently
outside the doors of the organization; despite the keen dissatisfac-
tion of many members with the working of the system, no state
has moved officially to abandon it. Tlius, the sole obstacle to the
achievement of universality lies within the United Nations, not
outside it. Whereas the League faced the problem of empty chairs
in its chambers, the United Nations is embarrassed by overcrowd-
ing in its vestibule. The obvious generalization is that the
League was most concerned to get the right states in, while its suc-
cessor is most interested in keeping the wrong states out.

The camping of unsuccessful applicants at the portals of ihe
United Nations is the result of the adoption by the United State*
and the Soviet Union of a policy of competitive exclusion. Each
in turn has made its bow to the notion that applicant states
should he admitted en masse, in order to achieve the idea! of
univeisahty. The United States pul forward the first "package
proposal" in 19 IG. only to base it rejected by the Soviet Union;
time 10|7, the USSR has sponsored a series of such proposals.

100 SWORDS INTO P 1.0 W SH A R F S

winch have been indignantly rejected by the United States. States
desirous of membership have been divided into two groups: po-
tential members of the Soviet bloc in the United Nations, which
have been denied the necessary support of seven members of the
Security Council, and potential adherents to the Western group-
ing, which have been consistently blocked by the Soviet veto.

Thus, the membership problem has been subjected to the politi-
cization which has become so characteristic of the United Nations.
It is not dear that either of the super-powers has been motivated
by careful calculation oE the changes in voting patterns which
would result from opening the doors of the United Nations.
Rather, the Soviet policy of preventing the admission of non-
Communist candidates unless Soviet prot6g£s are simultaneously
accepted, and the American policy of denying seats to satellites
of the USSR even at the expense of the ambitions of states ac-
ceptable to the United States, have acquired an importance for
political prestige which far exceeds their objective political sig-
nificance. The political stakes are subjective, and have been arti-
ficially created by the leading powers involved, but they are not
for that reason less real.

The United States has most of the law on its side. The Charter
states the requirements that would-be members should be "peace-
loving’ and be deemed "able and willing" to abide by the obli-
gations of membership, 7 and it dearly permits the United States
to refrain and to influence its friends to refrain from registering
an affirmative judgment on these points. Moreover, the American
criticism of the Soviet position is buttressed by the view of the
World Court, stated in 1948, that no member can properly justify
its vote to exdude applicants on grounds other than failure to
meet the qualifications stated in Article 4 of the Charter, and that
every application for admission should be examined and voted
on separately and on its osvn merits.” *

The Soviet position, if weaker from the standpoint of strict
law, is nonetheless more nearly in accord with the constitutional
ideal of universality. The objective of the United States is to em-

'Article 4, paragraph I.

•Advisory Opinion of the International Court ol Janice on Condition* ol Ad-
mission of New Members lo the United Nations, May 28, 1948. International
Court of Justice, Reports of Judgments, Advisory Opinions and Orders, 1948. PP-

THE PROBLEM OP MEMBERSHIP 101

phasize its political primacy in the organization by admitting only
such states as are likely to follow American leadership; failing
this, it is prepared to accept the exclusion of all candidates. The
USSR, on the other hand, seems not to aim so much at excluding
American -sponsored applicants as at making sure that they will
not be admitted without its own prot£g6s. For the United States,
it is one group or nothing; for the Soviet Union, it is both groups
or nothing. The United States seeks a political victory; the USSR
seeks to avoid a political defeat. The membership struggle is a
typical display of the political tactics of a self-confident majority
and a defensive minority, which is not without precedent in the
controversies regarding admission of new states to the federal sys-
tem of the United States.

The smaller members of the United Nations have also tended
to treat the membership problem as an opportunity for scoring
political victories rather than a question bearing upon the sound
constitutional development of the organization. While their ini-
tiatives have uniformly challenged the obstacles to admission of
new members and thus supported the principle of universality,
their political disinterestedness is questionable, to say the least.

On the whole, the lesser powers have seemed to select the mem-
bership issue as one battleground in their general fight for greater
status in the United Nations. They object to the veto power of
the Big Five as a symbol of inequality; therefore, they have at-
tacked the use of the veto, and challenged the validity oE the
assumption that the veto rule legally applies, in regard to consid-
eration of membership applications in the Security Council. In
this connection, they have regretted the disinclination of the
World Court to seize the opportunity (in its Advisory Opinion
on the Competence of the General Assembly for the Admission
of a State to the United Nations, March 3, 1950),® and have vainly
tried to persuade the General Assembly to address to the Court a
direct invitation, to give its constitutional advice on the right to
Veto membership applications.

A second campaign, *ieh ’ey Argentina. 'rets aimed at r-mWriArmg
the position that the General Assembly alone is competent to
decide on requests for admission, without necessary regard for the

have been denied the neccss ry >''PP°« ° ^ ^ Wn[ctn ,
Security Council, and poten bl b d by the Soviet VC
i„g, which have been ■ consistency blocU^ "T^ (o , ht .
Thus, the membership prob ' ristic o[ tbe United N

cizatian which has become „ er .™wers has been mo-

lt is no. clear that eidier ot the super powm
by careiul calculation ot the A S th e United N

would result irom opening the ioo ot n (

Rather, the Soviet policy oi m lhnult a

Communist candidates unless Soviet p ■> to ,

accented and the American policy oi denying
oi the USSR even at the expense oi • 1 V” b '"
ceptable to the United States, have »cqu.red an import ,
political prestige which iar exceeds their objecti P
nificance. The political stales are objective, i > nd bl
ficially created by the leading power, involved, but )
for that reason less real. T hc

The United States has most oi the law on its sid .

states the requirement, that woiild-be members should bc
loving’ and be deemed "able and willing to abide : by
gallons oi membership,' and it dearly permits deU nn
to refrain and to influence it, iriend, to retrain irom reg
an affirmative judgment on these points. Moreover,
criticism of the Soviet position is buttressed by the vi
World Coutt, stated in 1948, that no member can proper 1
its vote to exclude applicants on grounds other than
meet the qualifications stated in Article 4 oi the Oban",
"every application for admission should be examine
on separately and on its own merits.” *

The Soviet position, if weaker from the standpoi
law, is nonetheless moTe nearly in accord with l ^ e c0 ”* .
ideal of universality. The objective of the Unite ta

* Article 4. paragraph t. . , _ , - Tll „ ife on condition-

* Advisory Opinion of the International Court oi J“ Mlce , q48 i nK r

mission of New Members to the United Nations. May 2 , . \

Court of Justice, Reports 0/ Judgments, Advisory Opinions and

THE PROBLEM OF MEMBERSHIP

103

dilution of United Nations moral standards by participation in
cynical political deals. It may be true, as has often been suggested,
that the United States is in fact waiting for a package deal to end
all package deals — i.e, t that it wants to make sure that Germany
and Japan are included in any massive reception for new mem-
bers; in the meantime, however, die American doctrine includes
the condemnation of package deals in principle, as one aspect of
its insistent moralism. The fact that this general moralistic posi-
tion virtually requires application of a double standard, with
more rigorous requirements for applicants than for existing mem-
bers, normally arouses no qualms of conscience. However, Secre-
tary of State Dulles was led on one occasion to attempt to resolve
this dilemma by arguing that the Soviet Union occupied a rela-
tively decent moral position, as compared with Communist China,
since the former had never been declared an aggressor by the
United Nations. 11

A more significant dilemma is illustrated by two contrasting
statements by Mr. Dulles. On January 18, 1954, he expressed
absolute confidence that

if it had not been for this organization which brought together
these prospeemely warring elements, if each had operated in a
closed compartment of its own, the frictions, the difficulties would
have become so acute that a general war would have to be rated
as very likely, instead of as I rate it today, unlikely . 11

But a fesv months later, he upheld the exclusion of aggressively-
inclined regimes on the ground that

the United Nations was not set up to be a reformatory. It was as-
sumed that you would be good before you got in and not that
being in would make you good . 11

Mr. Dulles' confusion takes us to the heart of the matter. Is
the United Nations to be a congregation of the pure in heart,
or an assemblage of saints and sinners, within the context of

”.Vc* lor* Twin. July 9. 1954

"Twumonv by Shiftily Du tic* on Jjnuiry IS, 1954. In Uni ere ef the I'ntted
.Valium ( hmr-trr, Hearing before a Subeommittte at the Committee an Foreign
Relation! t mini Slain Senile. thS Congret I. Tmt Simon (Wjvhmjion' Govern-
ment Printing Office. I9S4J. Tart I. J». 19. (Cited bfrofm *» Charter tlnieu

THE PROBLEM OF MEMBERSHIP 105

original members of the organization? In fact, the United States,
whose determined leadership has prevented the replacement of
Nationalist by Communist delegates, has tended to treat the mat-
ter as if it were a membership question, even though admitting,
when pressed, that it is a question merely analogous to that of
membership.

The logical confusion reigning in the Chinese question has
exceeded the bounds of decency. Secretary-General Trygve Lie,
in a legal memorandum of March 8, 1950, took the position that
questions of representation and of recognition are entirely sepa-
rable, ,s thus supporting the proposition that a state may recognize
one regime as the government of a member state and another
as the entity qualified to act on behalf of the state in the United
Nations. This indeed is the situation in which Great Britain and
other member states which have recognized Red China but have
felt compelled to go along with the American policy of maintain-
ing Nationalist Chinese representation in the United Nations
have been placed, but it is an extraordinarily anomalous situation.
They are in the position of admitting that the Mao regime is
the government of China but denying it the right to act for China
in the most important international forum, and of rejecting the
claim of the Chiang regime to be the government of China but
acquiescing in its pretension to do what only a government can
do — to represent the state in the United Nations. This must be
the perfect nightmare for a foreign office legal expert.

The United States, which has managed to avoid this predica-
ment by placing a number of its friends squarely in it, has de-
veloped its own quota of confusion on the issue. Secretary of State
Dulles argued on July 8, 1954, that the qualitative standards pre-
scribed by the Charter for new members, and the Security Coun-
cil voting procedure for acceptance of new members — i.e., the
veto rule — should be transferred, by necessary and unchallenge-
able analogy, to the issue of Chinese representation. 16 In contrast
to Mr. Dulles' explicit reliance upon derivation of the rules re-
lating to representation from the provisions concerning admission
of new members, his right-hand man in the United Nations,

"UN Document S/1466. Text in International Organisation, Map 1950, pp. 356
360

"New York Times, July 9. 1954

104

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

which sinners may be dissuaded from execution of their nefarious
schemes and perhaps even brought to repentance and conversion?
There are indeed other alternatives, but within the moralistic
frame of reference these mo plainly exist, and a clear choice be-
tween them is necessary.

The fundamental tragedy of the moralization of the member-
ship issue is that it has not been related consistently to a definite
conception of what function the United Nations should perform,
or attempt to perform, in international relations. It has been a
moralization in support of narrow and short-range political posi-
tions (and in deference to popular opinion in the United States)
rather than in alignment with a position concerning the possible
and desirable constitutional development of the United Nations.
It is perhaps too much to ask American moralists to apply the
maxim, "Judge not that ye be not judged,” in approaching mem-
bership questions, but moralistic attitudes might at least be ex-
pected to make some functional sense.

Indeed, the whole concept of admission to the United Nations
as a reward reserved for the deserving might well be questioned.
It is not self-evident that membership should be regarded as a
boon to be denied to “bad” states rather than a penalty to be
imposed upon them. Virtually all states appear to be agreed that
it is advantageous to belong to the organization, but the “best
members ought, by definition, to be those most acutely conscious
of the fact that membership involves duties as well as rights, and
subjection to restraint as well as enjoyment of privilege. Being
bound by the United Nations Charter is no unmixed blessing for
a rambunctious government.

The seemingly interminable controversy over the representa-
tion of China in the United Nations bears out the conclusion
that the treatment of the membership question as a political and
moral problem leads ultimately to the confusion of the issue.
The Chinese question, which has been a cause ctlebre in the
United Nations since 1950, is technically a matter of credentials,
closely tied to the problem of recognition: which of two rival
Chinese regimes— -the Nationalists ensconced on the quasi-Chinese
island of Formosa, or the Communists dominating mainland
China — is to be regarded as the government authorized to send
representatives to act on behalf of the Chinese State, one of the

107

THE PROBLEM OF MEMBERSHIP
of the institution, and tried consistently to relate membership
policy to a definite conception of the functional nature of the
United Nations. This is not to say that it is theoretically possible
to use such a simple notion as "tile good of the United Nations
as the guide to membership policy. The preliminary question is:
what might and should the organization be good for ? The task
of statesmanship in regard to the membership issue is first to de-
termine the purposes which the United Nations should serve, and
then to develop a membership policy compatible with and con-
ducive to the realization of those purposes. The Charter does not
in fact answer the preliminary question, even though it states the
aims to which the founding fathers were willing to give verbal
assent in 1945. It is the continuing responsibility of the member
states to determine the working purposes of the organization.
Ideally, there would be a consensus on this fundamentally im-
portant question: actually, there are, and will continue to be pro-
found differences of view. In either case, the problem of mem
ship can be intelligently treated only as a subsidiary of

tlSof the purposes o. the United Nadon, as
originally formulated, it is clear that the rule of "

cide, approximately with the principle of universality. This is a
point which Secretary-General Lie made as early as 19« and
never tired of reiterating.-" If the United Nations is to «ve as
the focal point for efforts to settle the disputes, moderate the a
hides, solve the problems, and eliminate the < amd.tiom winch
make for war and insecurity, its ranks should be as wide po

’ ib l’f'.he organization is to be converter i into a mechanhm for
perfecting a coalition against an identifiable hostile bloc, and per
haps also a device for giving semiglobal sanction » theac nvuie.
of such a coalition, a highly selective membership i po' cy « o ^

ously appropriate. Such a project ’°* though it is arguable
Nations may be legitimate and desirable, althoug •

that the former version is superfluous in mew of °

such extra-United Nations institutions as NATO *”<> ‘

latter version is destined for ineffectuality. It is clear,

■Ti,*, Lie. M — ““““ ^ ‘

101, 102, 254 , 280, 301, S19, 428.

SWORDS INTO PLOWSIIARTS

IOC

Henry Cabot Lodge. Jr., bad already gone on record as believing
tint the two issues were “legally quite distinct" and that the veto
on admission could be abolished without undermining the legal
case for application of the veto rule to representation questions.”
Mr. Dulles not only seemed, in his statement of July 8, to be
unaware that his spokesman in the United Nations had pulled
his legal rug from under him, but he himself is on the record as
wishing to dispense with the rug. The Secretary' of State is in the
position of favoring the elimination of the veto on admission,”
and at the same time relying upon that veto power as the basis of
his claim of right to use the veto in representation issues. The
untenahility of that position was suggested in a Staff Study issued
by a Congressional Subcommittee on February ID, 195-1, in which
it was observed that “if the veto svere eliminated in the question
of admission of new member states it would be difficult to justify
its use on the subordinate, more clearly procedural, question of
is hat government sliatt represent a member state.” **

The Chinese Communist regime has been debarred from oc-
cupying China’s seat in the United Nations on moral and po-
litical grounds, but it has nonetheless been treated as if it svere
the government of that state for the purpose of assessing respon-
sibility for China’s international mislxhavior. The basic dilemma
in American thinking concerning the question is well illustrated
by the fact that the United States, which has so insistently de-
manded that the Red Chinese be branded unworthy to come to
the United Nations as representatives of the state, supported the
decision to take the United Nations to Red China— if Secretary-
General Hammarskjold’s pilgrimage to Peiping on behalf of im-
prisoned United Nations military personnel in early 1955 may be
so interpreted.

What is clear about die whole vexed and confused issue of
membership in the United Nations is that virtually no one, except
Secretary-General Lie and his successor, has seriously considered
it in terms of its significance for the constitutional development

"See Lodge's testimony ot Match S. 1951, Charter Kevin- //earing. Pari t, p. 5*.

“See the testimony of Mr. Dulles on January 18. 1911. ibid., especially pp. 7, 15.

»■ The Problem oj (he Veto In the United Notion! Security Couneil, Stilt Study
No. 1, Subcommittee on the United Nations Charter. Senate Committee on Foreign
Relations, 83rd Congrcsj, 2nd Session (Washington: Government Printing Office,

MM) • P 14

THE PROBLEM OF MEMBERSHIP 109

regulation of military forces. For the most decisively important
international purposes, the Chinese chair in the United Nations
stands empty.

In some degree, the problem of empty chairs has affected the
Specialized Agencies of the United Nations system. While theii
membership lists vary, and are in some cases much larger than
that of the United Nations, these bodies have been frustrated in
becoming as inclusive as the principle of essentiality requires by
two factors: the reluctance of some states, particularly those of
the Soviet bloc, to join or to participate actively in their work;
and the tendency of statesmen to transfer to them, in disregard
of the rule of essentiality, the same politically and morally in-
spired concepts of exclusivism which have been applied to the
general organization. The early barring of Spain, and the more
recent exclusion of the regime which is competent to deal with
the problems of mainland China, are prime examples of this
tendency.

The problem of empty chairs is not entirely measurable in
terms of formal membership lists. As in the case of the League,
the United Nations system is characterized by relativity of mem-
bership. Under various arrangements, formal and informal, a
number of states participate in many of the activities of the com-
prehensive United Nations system without enjoying official mem-
bership in the central organization itself, just as member states
of the United Nations in some cases refrain from taking an active
or even a nominal part in some phases of the system's operations.
Under various provisions of the Charter , 22 the United Nations
undertakes to impose restrictions upon and to provide certain
privileges and safeguards for even nonmember states. Thus, it is
not possible to say precisely how significant the formal lists of
member and nonmember states are for the working of the organ-
izational system.

It is certain that the quantitative aspects of the membership
question are not the whole story; the qualitative aspect is at least
equally important, and beyond this a wide range of problems,
constitutional and otherwise, affects the possibilities of the United
Nations. But if a membership policy reasonably adapted to the

“See Article; 2 (paragraph 6). 32. 35 . 50. and 93.

SWORDS INTO HOWJHARII

.10

requirements of essentiality is not a guarantee of the sound con-
stitutional development of the United Nations, it is at least a
prerequisite for that evolution .* 1

SUGGESTED READINGS

Akzin, Benjamin, New Stater and International Organizations, Paris:

UNLSCO (for the International Political Science Association), 1955-
Fleming, Dcnna F., The United States and the Leagve of Nations,
1918-1920, New York: Putnam's, 1932.

Jenks, C. W., “Some Constitutional Problems of International Organi-
zation," Brifii/i Yearbook of International Law, London: Oxford
University Tress, 1915.

The Problem of Membership in the United Nations, Staff Study No.
3, Subcommittee on the United Nations Charter, Committee on
Foreign Relations, United States Senate, 83rd Congress, 2nd Session,
Washington: Government Printing Office, 1951.

Rudrinski, AJcksamlcr W. p "Admission of New Members: The United
Nations and the League of Nations," International Conciliation,
No. 480, April 1952.

Stein, Eric, Some Implications of Expanding United Nations Member-
ship, New York: Carnegie Endoument for International Peace, 1956.
Walters, F. P„ A History of the League of Nations, London: Oxford
University Press, 1952, Vol. I, Chaps. 6, 27, 30, 3S: Vo I. II, Chaps.
46, 48, Gl.

** * 7 ° r a discussion of changes in United Nations membership lince the fall of 1955,
see Chapter ta

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

and .he potential awareness of common interest, which are neces-
sarv for the effective functioning of multilateral mstitutio ■ .

Z* it too diverse and unwieldy; the “

nomic, cultural, administrative, and psycholosical-hctt ce pe
pies a. opposite ends of the earth are too formidable to permu
development of a working sense of common snvohement and
join, responsibility. W.thin a region, on the other Itand, d. P
.ion of International solutions to real problems can be intell^
gently carried out, and commitments by states to each o
be confined to manageable proportions and sanctioned by clearly
evident bonds of mutuality.

The lure of universal,., ha. had since 1010 a dangerous fascination
for promoter, of international order. The tut, venal, ty ol any “odd
organization almost inevitably tends to weaken its *PP ea 1
ticular loyalties and particular interests. It was probably a
of the League of Nations that its commitments were 8 cncra ‘
anonymous, it imposed the same obligations on ^ Albania as on '
Britain, and the same obligation on both to defend the t P*
ence of Belgium against Germanv and that of Panama again
United States. These generalities could be justified in terms ol P
reason but not translated into terms of concrete policy, so tha ^
whole structure remained abstract and unreal. ... A worlt •
ganization may be a necessary convenience as well as a vaiu
symbol. But the intermediate unit is more likely to be the opera
factor in the transition from nationalism to internationalism.

The advocacy of regionalism can be, and often is, as doctrinaire
and as heedless of concrete realities as the passion for all-encom
passing organization. It should be stressed that the suitability o
regionalism depends in the first place upon the nature o t ie
problem to be dealt with. Some problems of the modern " or
are international in the largest sense, and can be effective y
treated only by global agencies. Others are characteristically re
gional, and lend themselves to solution by correspondingly e
limited bodies. Still others are regional in nature, but require or
their solution the mobilization of extra-regional resources. T ’* u *»
the control of armaments is pre-eminently a problem deman
global action; the interlocking of national railway systems is
proper subject for an organization of merely continental scope,
1 Edward H Carr, A'afrona/um and Aftrr (London: Macmillan. 1945) , P-

THE PROBLEM OF REGIONALISM 11?

and the economic development of Asia requires not simply the
pooling of Asian poverty but the fertilization of Asian resources
by vital contributions from the West.

The nature of a problem is significant not only for the deter-
mination of the most appropriate means of solution, but also for
the measurement of the range of its impact. A problem may be
regional in location, and susceptible of regional management,
and yet have such important implications for the whole world
as to make it a fit subject for the concern of a general organiza-
tion. The world-at-large cannot be disinterested in such “re-
gional" matters as the demographic problem in South Asia or
the status of forced laborers in the Soviet bloc. Thus, the ques-
tion of the ramifications of a problem as well as that of its in-
trinsic quality affects the choice between regional and universal
approaches.

At bottom, the regionalist position is that the regional unit is
capable of more effective organizational action than the global
unit; the stress is placed here on the nature of the unit rather
than the nature oE the problem. This consideration points to one
of the basic dilemmas of international organization; the disparity
between needs for organization and capacity for organization. The
unanswerable question is whether institutional endeavors should
be geared to the requirements posed by the objective situation or
to the possibilities offered by and limited by the political situa-
tion. In terms of our present problem, this question means choos-
ing between the treatment of global issues on the universal level,
in accordance with the nature of the issues and their implications,
or on the regional level, in accordance with the assumption that
more effective collaboration is possible on that level.

However, that assumption should not go unchallenged. The
world does not in fact break easily along neatly perforated lines.
Rational regional divisions are difficult to establish, boundaries
determined for one purpose are not necessarily appropriate for
other purposes, and the most carefully chosen dividing lines have
a perverse way of changing or coming to require change, and of
overlapping. It is true that brave universalist experiments tend
to give way to sober regionalist afterthoughts, but it is equally
true that carefully cut regional patterns tend to lose their shape
through persistent stretching in the direction of univcrsalism. In

^ ^ SWORDS INT

a sense the adoption oi the universal approach is the line of leal!
re, i", ante, since it obviate, the difficulties of defining region, and

U xt S ,r otr 8 rea, powers ofier, P — | %
the development of regionalism. On .he one hand he segm
la, ion process may take into realis.ic account the fact _ h

great powers are world powers, or states with a general mu r
fn that case, the regional body tend, to include the ".cdureglon
great powers along with the local smaller fry, f” 4
graphical sense as well a, its assumed emancipation from invol
ment in the unwelcome complexities of the wide wotld_ Fm n
stance, Prance, the United Kingdom and the Un ted Sta ^
well as one small power with wide colonial interests, t
lands) are member, of all three of the regional economic co
missions established by the United Nations-those for Europ ' .
Asia and the Far East, and Latin America. "Of " m “ e “ , p '
regional arrangements among the free nations, the Unite a

is a member of eight and closely associated with three othe \

' On the other hand, regional organizations tend to be o
around the local great power, and thus to take on the characte
of a solar system, with subsidiary members revolving about in
central sun. One might conceive of a world divided into, le
say, American, British, and Soviet regional blocs, but this arrang -
ment might not constitute anything more than a formalization o
spheres of influence; it might contribute little or nothing to ^
elimination of conflicts among the great powers, or the alleviatto
of the anxieties of the small states with regard to their secun y
against domination by the neighborhood giant. . ^

This leads to the statement of a cautionary “it ain’t necessari y
so” in response to the proposition that organized action operates
best within regional groupings. Intraregional affinities may e
offset by historically rooted intraregional animosities, and geo-
graphical proximity may pose dangers which states wish to . *
minish by escaping into universalism rather than collaborative
possibilities which states wish to exploit in regional privacy.
While universalism strains the moral-political capacity of Franc
in asking it to be the Ethiopian brother’s keeper, regiona ism

•Norman J. Padelford, 'Regional Organization and the United Nations, ,nl<r
national Organization, May 1954, p. 206.

THE PROtSLEM OF REGIONALISM

115

strains the trustfulness of the French lamb in asking it to lie down
with the German wolf. The choice between regionalism and uni-
versalism involves giving serious consideration to both these
maxims: “out of sight, out of mind,” and “absence makes the
heart grow fonder.”

A second statement of the case for regionalism stresses its util*
ity as a stepping stone to globalism; regional agencies are not
substitutes for, but preliminaries to, a world organization.

This position may be stated in terms of something like organic
evolution, with emphasis upon the notion of a natural sequence
of stages of growth. Just as the national state of today represents
the consolidation of pre-existing fragmentary units, it will be
superseded by larger regional entities, which will in turn be
united in a single global system; regionalism is a necessary and
desirable intermediate stage in the slow process of world integra-
tion. As Robert Boothby has put it: “On the purely practical
plane, regional organization is an essential prelude to any kind
of global organization. You must build, on firm foundations, from
the bottom upwards." 8

Aside from the dubious accuracy of the view that the rise of
the national state is dearly indicative of a trend toward enlarge-
ment of political units, a position which requires the playing
down of the disintegrative aspect of modern nationalism, this gen-
eral concept has considerable plausibility. However, the assump-
tion that Tegionalism leads either automatically or easily to global-
ism requires closer examination.

One way of dealing with the problem of the transition is illus-
trated by the thinking of Clarence K. Streit, who proposed a
Union of democracies, which he assumed would constitute a
“nucleus world state,” capable of attracting outside states and
thereby growing into universality . 4 Another possibility is to as-
sume that the ultimate world system would have not one but
several cores — that it would be not a universalized regional or-
ganization but a regionalized world organization, formed by the
combination of regional building blocks. Thus, it has been sug-
gested that most European regionalists envisage lesser federations

* Cited in
Royal Instm

Alan de Rusett. Strengthening the Framework of Peat
ite of International Affairs. 1950) . p. 125.
no (Oih ed ; New York- Harper and Brothers, nai). pp

-e (London:
87. m-uj.

116

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

as “constituent and permanent elements of a World Government

The latter view seems sounder than Streits in that it recog
nizes the probability that the adoption of a regional approach
would lead to the creation of more than one sub-global organ •
ration; while a snowball may simply grow by accretion a com-
bination of states tends to stimulate its duplication elsewhere in
the world. What the latter view fails to take into sufficient ac-
count is the prospect that the several regional groupings will be
competitive, and that the task of bringing them into either unitv
or harmony will be at least as difficult as the task of dealing witn
the multiplicity of national states. To put it in snowball terms,
the makers of the several snowballs are as likely to throw them at
each other as to use them for creating a single snowman. It is far
from self-evident that regionalism provides decisive progress to-
ward the evolution of an effective general system for world order

and welfare.

Another version of the theory that regionalism is a necessary
preliminary to universalism is definable as the "pilot project
concept. According to this view, regional organizations do not
expand or coalesce into a world system but rather provide wor
ing models and serve as training grounds for organization on a
world scale. They invent techniques, conduct experiments m
advanced forms of international collaboration, and deve op
among their participants the habits and attitudes which prepare
the way for successful organization of the globe.

This kind of thinking has been especially characteristic o
students of the British Commonwealth. Lord Elton combined the
organic and the instructional concepts of regionalism in his sug-
gestion that ". . . the gift of the British Empire to the future >'
likely ... to be of the Empire-Commonwealth itself as the P al *
tern, and in some sense the nucleus, of some wider organizatioi
yet to be. It may be that the island from which the world l ear,, ‘
the art of freedom will yet help teach it . . . the art of unity.

L. S. Amery has affirmed the belief that the Commonwealth rep-
resents the development of “a new constitutional principle o

*De Rusett, op ctl , p. 159

•Lord Elton, Imperial Commonwealth (New York: Reynal and Hitchcock. 1» >•
P . 523

118 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARE

international cooperation, to success derives Irom lactor s ^hkh
are unique to the Commonwealth system not sub )“' t0 ™"
to or reproduction by other groupings of states or the 0
lectivity of states. The world cannot rely upon the po sibility o
creating global analogues of the British Crown, >1- ^0, mnof
attachment to the histoncal and cultural traditions of the Bn
mother-country, or the identification of national self-interest will
the maintenance of ties with the clearly preponderant but ex-
traordinarily self-restrained British great power. The intangible
bonds of the Commonwealth may properly be regarded as
objects of global envy, but not global imitation.

From another point of view, the lesson of the Commonweal!
is positively discouraging. It is striking that a group of states pos-
sessing such substantial elements of consensus and community
should have failed so completely to develop formal comrmtmen s,
institutional arrangements, and multilateral procedures indicativ
of the corrosion of sovereignty; in these respects, the Common-
wealth is in the rearguard, not the vanguard, of Internationa
organizations. The ready answer is that the nations of the Bntisn
family can manage their cooperative relations without forma
paraphernalia; but if this be accepted, the conclusion is that the
Commonwealth offers evidence that under ideal circumstances
circumstances which clearly do not prevail in the world at large
— international organization is unnecessary , not encouraging
proof that effective international organization is possible, or use-
ful clues as to the means of achieving that possibility.

In truth, the ready answer is altogether too facile. The Com
monwealth has long considered proposals for creating such a S eI \
cies as a Commonwealth Tribunal and joint parliamentary an
executive institutions, all of which have foundered on the roc
of sovereignty. True, it has evolved highly significant methods o
informal consultation and collaboration, but its failure to create
formal institutions has been less indicative of the happy realiza-

tion that such devices are unnecessary than of the stubborn un
willingness of its members to compromise their progress towar ,
and achievement of, a full quota of national sovereignty. T e
record of cooperative accomplishment within the Commonwea
is impressive, but it does not offset the fact that the British system
fails utterly to provide either an inspiring example or use u

THE PROBLEM OF REGIONALISM 119

instruction for a larger family of nations which is confronted
with the task of inducing its members to relax their vigilance
against derogation of sovereignty sufficiently to create increasingly
advanced forms of international organization.

It has been well said that “The structure of the British Com-
monwealth of Nations is peculiar. If it did not exist, you could
not invent it.”® The larger family of nations cannot hope to
duplicate its psychic foundations, and it would have no hope if
it did duplicate its structural deficiencies.

In general, the record of regional organizations provides scant
support for the thesis that the world may expect to learn its
organizational lessons from such bodies. The Commonwealth is
not atypical of regional agencies in operating as a laggard rather
than a trail-blazer in regard to the development of institutional
limitations upon sovereignty. If the road toward world order lies
through the acceptance of majority voting, the creation of inter-
national executive authorities and administrative competencies,
the submission of states to collective jurisdictions, and the assump-
tion by states of explicit responsibilities, the pioneers have more
often been general than regional organizations. The flight of
security-minded statesmen from the veto-bound Security Council
of the United Nations to NATO was not an escape from a
primitive to a more advanced form of international organization,
so far as voting procedures are concerned, for the North Atlantic
Treaty permits a much more thoroughgoing application of the
veto principle than the Charter provisions concerning the Security
Council. This example is instructive; up to this point in the devel-
opment of international organization, the advantages of regional
agencies — and they are not insignificant — have had to do with
factors other than progress in the formal acknowledgment of
limitations upon sovereign rights and formal creation of institu-
tional patterns.

The generalization may ultimately require revision, particularly
if the European Coal and Steel Community should prove to have
inaugurated a new trend in regional systems, but there is little
reason yet to wax enthusiastic about the “pilot project” aspect
of the case for regionalism.

•K C Whcare. I he Nature and Structure of the Cora in on wealth," American
Political Science Raww, December I9‘>3. p. 1016.

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

120

The underlying basis of the actual working balance between
regionalism and universalism which has evolved in the twentieth
century has been the conception of regional agencies as concom-
itant supplements to organizations of unlimited geographical
scope. In this conception, regional institutions may function as
subordinate pieces of international machinery, sharing the load,
diverting some of the tensions of international relations from the
central world organization, and serving as agents of the larger
community in handling problems which pertain primarily to
their own regional localities. They may be regarded as "back-
stops" for general international organization, providing a second
line of defense upon which reliance may be placed if the global
institutions fail to cope with the major problems of peace and
security. They may be envisaged as temporary props for precari-
ously grounded general agencies, saving them for future develop-
ment by dealing with crucial issues which threaten to destroy
them. This conception gives no theoretical priority to the prin-
ciple of regionalism and concedes no inherent superiority to the
institutions based upon that principle; rather, it assumes the com-
patibility of regional and general approaches, minimizing their
competitive aspects, and looks toward the development of a prag-
matic sharing of the tasks of international organization.

Regionalism and the United Nations

The history of the United Nations, from the San Francisco
Conference to the present, offers a case study in this sort of
eclecticism. The atmosphere of San Francisco was affected by the
necessity of making the bow to regionalism which was demanded
by those states which had already made heavy political invest-
ments in such arrangements as the Inter-American system, the
British Commonwealth, and the Arab League. It was also im-
possible to ignore the prevalence of the wartime Churchillian
view that ‘ there should be several regional councils, august but
subordinate, [and] that these should form the massive pillars upon
which the world organisation would be founded in majesty and
calm.” 10

“Churchill described his wartime thought In these terms in a speech at the
Hague on May 7, 1948. See Randolph S. Churchill, ed . Europe Unite (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1950), p. 314

122

IKOIDS INTO FLO Will ARE*

gional agencies. Tlic British Commonwealth, which made a great
point during the League era of reserving disputes among it! mem-
bers for treatment inter se, has been a prominent exporter of
political troubles to the United Nations; far from reducing the
workload of die world organization, it has presented that body
with smh dubiously welcome gifts as the persistent conflict be-
tween India and the Union of South Africa over the treatment of
non- Euro pea ns m the latter country, and the Kashmir dispute
between India and Pakistan. Indeed, such an atmosphere of
brotherly love as the Commomveahh is able to maintain in its
own gatherings is largely dependent upon the jxnsibility of
diverting gusts of intcrfilial animosity to the United Nations.
When Greece and Britain — and, less prominently, Turkey — de-
veloped an acute conflict over the status of Cyprus, they took their
troubles not to NATO but to the United Nations. Only the
Organization of American States has functioned significantly as
an agency of intrarrgional conciliation, notably in connection
svith the Guatemala and Costa Rica cases of 1931 and 1953. F.n-
thusiastic appraisal of the regional organization’s helpfulness to
the overworked United Nations in the former case must be tem-
pered by knowledge that the Guatemalan regime, which felt itself
threatened by forces allegedly supported by its neighbors, pre-
ferred submission of the ease to the world organization, and that
the United States insisted not so much upon regional action to
insure just settlement, as upon United Nations inaction to avoid
interference with the success of the campaign to overthrow the
Guatemalan Government. 11 By and large, neither the states in-
volved in disputes nor the political agencies of the United Nations
have shown a strong disposition to exploit the possibilities en-
visaged in Article 52 of the Charter for utilization of regional
instrumentalities for pacific settlement.

In most other respects, hosvever, regionalism has achieved *
gradually increasing importance in the global system. In con-
siderable measure, the United Nations and the Specialized Agen-
cies have decentralized their operations on the basis of geographi-
cal segmentation, and working cooperation between United Na-

“See the text of Secretary of Stare Duller - ipcech of June SO, 1931. Stw
Timet, July I, 19S4

THE PROBLEM OF REGIONALISM 123

lions and regional bodies has been established in many functional
areas.

The greatest upsurge of regionalism has taken place in the
sphere of high politics and security. The period since 1945 has
seen the development of the regimented Soviet bloc of nations
and the North Atlantic Treaty grouping, the launching of the
Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, the elaborate reconstitution
of the Organization of American States, and the conclusion of
numerous other alliances and special arrangements. The region-
alist ferment has been particularly active in Western Europe,
where such bodies as the Council of Europe and the European
Coal and Steel Community have been formed, and many am-
bitious schemes of integration have been seriously considered.
European regionalism has been conceived in comprehensive func-
tional terms, although this movement has also been profoundly
related to the quest for political and military advantage which
has been the characteristic motivating force behind post-World
War II regionalizing tendencies.

It has been customary since 1945 for the constituent treaties of
regional agencies to provide verbal assurance of their conformity
with and subordination to the United Nations Charter; for in-
stance, the North Atlantic Treaty commits its parties to conform
to the rules of international behavior laid down in the Charter,
provides that the activities of the regional organization will be
conducted within the authorization and limitations prescribed in
Article 51 of the Charter, and disavows any intent to revise the
rights or duties of parties which are members of the United Na-
tions or to infringe upon the established responsibilities of the
Security Council. 14 Moreover, it has been authoritatively sug-
gested that such a regional agency as NATO might become an
operating arm of the United Nations, serving as its military-
component whenever circumstances require. 15

“The North Atlantic Treaty, April 4, 1919. preamble and Articles I, 5, 7. See
Appendix III

“See First Report of the Coltectise Measures Committee, 1951 (UN Document
A/1891), in Rev im of the United Rations Charter- A Collection of Documents,
Senate Document No 87, 83rd Congress. 2nd Session (Washington: Gotemmenl
filming Office. 1951). p 630. This volume will be cued hereafter «« Charter
Werieie Documents See also Sir Gladwyn Jebb. The Free Woild *nd the United
Nations." Foreign Affair,, April 1953. pp. 3S5-SM.

J24 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARFS

Nevertheless, the truth is that regional security agencies have
acquired a more nearly autonomous status, and a much more
prominent status, in relation to the United Nations than was
envisaged at San Francisco. Despite formal stipulations to the
contrary, regional organizations are not in practical fact subject
to the overriding tontrol and authority of the world organization.
The Soviet regional structure is justified largely in terms of Arti-
cles 53 and 107 of the Charter, which provide a convenient loop-
hole for Soviet-sponsored action without reference to any higher
authority, whenever such action is purportedly aimed at pre-
venting the aggressive resurgence of enemy states of World ^\ar
II w The Western bloc-builders have studiously avoided basing
their arrangements upon the provision of Article 53 which re-
quires previous authorization by the Security Council before
regional agencies may legally resort to enforcement action, and
have instead invoked Article 51, which rccognizes the legitimacy
of “collective self-defense," subject only to subsequent controlling
action by the Security Council. Since the Security Council can
be prevented from intervening in such a situation by the use. of
the great power veto, the practical effect of the legal position
adopted by the Western powers, like that of the Soviet bloc, is to
emancipate the regional groupings from any unwelcome assertion
of controlling authority by the Security Council. Thus, regional
agencies have been able to acquire plausible legal justification for
being what they are intended by their creators to be: independ-
ently operating coalitions, unhampered by external controls. They
may place themselves at the service of the United Nations and
voluntarily accept its restraining influence, but they have escaped
the subordinate status which was intended for them by the makers
of the Charter.”

The constitutional problem of achieving a balance between
regional and universal approaches to international organization
is far from solved. The record of experience suggests that the
weight of emphasis tends to fluctuate; inaugurate a great uni-
versalist experiment and regionalism will make its demand for
attention; cut the world into subdivisions and the urge to create

“ W. W. Kuhki, “The Soviet System ot Collective Security Compared wtth
Western System," American Journal of International Law, July 1930, pp. 4 M ' 470 *

” fpr fuller discussion ot regional security agencies, see Chapter 12.

THE PROBLEM OF REGIONALISM

125

global institutions for harmonizing the policies and activities of
regional agencies will arise. This is perhaps not a problem to be
solved, but rather a process to be managed. The maintenance of
equilibrium between opposing tendencies operating in a dynamic
context is a task requiring great skill and statesmanlike capacity
for judging the circumstantial requirements for and possibilities
of adaptation. Beyond this, it requires an intelligent evaluation of
the merits and demerits of the opposing tendencies which has not
been notably present in the management of the shifting balance
between regional and universal approaches to international or-
ganization.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Haas, Ernst B., "Regional Integration and National Policy," Interna-
tional Conciliation, No. 513, May 1957.

Haines, C. Grove, ed., European Integration, Baltimore: Johns Hop
kins, 1957.

Mason, Henry L., The European Coal and Steel Community, The
Hague: Nijhoff, 1955.

Robertson, A. H., The Council of Europe, New York: Praeger, 1957.

Underhill, Frank H„ The British Commonwealth— An Experiment in
Co-operation Among Nations, Durham: Duke University Press. 1956.

Whitaker, Arthur P., The Western Hemisphere Idea. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1954.

CHAPTER

The Problem of Voting

Constitutional issues of the first importance for international
organization are posed by the problem of voting. How should
voting power be distributed among member states? What con-
centration of voting power should be required to validate deci-
sions? Given the probability of disagreement within international
agencies, the determination of the manner in which the inter-
national mind shall be made up and words put in the interna-
tional mouth is clearly a matter of utmost significance.

Voting is a concept alien to the traditional system for the
management of international relations, imported into this sphere
as a result of the development of international organization. In
consequence, much of the thinking about the international voting
question has rested upon assumptions borrowed from outside,
rather than upon principles developed with specific reference to
the requirements of international organization. Thus, the equali-
tarianism of traditional international law, the majoritarianism of
democratic philosophy, and the Elitism of European great power
diplomacy have been transferred to the sphere of international
organization to serve as competing elements in shaping the ap-
proach to international decision-making. Should voting arrange-
ments be determined by legal assumptions about the nature of the
state, paying respect to the concept of sovereignty? Should they be
governed by the ideal of making international agencies conform
to the normative patterns of democratic institutions, adopting the
principle of majority rule? Should they be designed to reflect

126

THE PROBLEM OF VOTING

127

the configuration o£ power in the real political world, giving
special status to the great powers? A11 these considerations have
entered into the development of voting systems in international
agencies, and they have almost — hut not quite — excluded the
consideration which is of fundamental importance for sound con-
stitutional evolution: what voting arrangements are most appro-
priate to the functional nature which international institutions
are expected and desired to achieve?

Traditional international law contributed the rule which served
as the historic starting point for international voting, and still
serves as its basing point: the rule that every state has an equal
voice in international proceedings, and that no state can be. bound
without its consent. The ingredients of sovereign equality and
sovereign immunity from externally imposed legislation were
combined in the rule of unanimity. In old-fashioned diplomacy,
this meant simply that a state might abstain from treaty relation-
ships which others might enter into at their pleasure; in new-
fangled international organization, the rule of unanimity tended
to be transformed into the rule of liberum veto, according to
which no organizational decision could be reached if any mem er
of the organization dissented. The theoretical distinction between
these two rules has seldom been insisted upon; in the vocabulary
of multilateral diplomacy, the principle of unanimity implies the
right of one state to prevent a collective decision.

Doctrinal insistence upon this principle was expressed by the
President of the Second Hague Conference in 1907:

The hrst principle of every Conference is that of unanimity; it is
not an emptv form, but the basis of every political understanding
. . in an International Conference each delegation represents a

different State of equal sovereignty. No delegation has the right to
accept a decision of the majority which would be contrary to t e
will of its Government. 1

Lord Robert Cecil asserted at the Paris Conference of 191* that
“all international decisions must by the nature o t nngs e
unanimous." ’ and the Covenant incorporated the unanimity rule
1 Cited in Leonard S. Woolf, /nffmalionot Ceoernmrnt (London: Cror^ Allot

‘"■cL7', n n 1TW; <»» **

Hill. 1951) . p 89

sword:

N TO PLOWSHARES

128

in Article 5 as the basic premise of its voting arrangements. In its
Advisory Opinion of November 21, 1925, the World Court noted
that the rule of unanimity was “in accordance with the unvarying
tradition of all diplomatic meetings or conferences,” and held that
it was "naturally and even necessarily” applicable to intergovern-
mental bodies such as the League Council, save only in explicitly
excepted cases.*

The Development of International Majoritarlanism

The history of international organization is the story of efforts
to achieve progressive emancipation from the tradition-based rule
of equality and unanimity. In its equalitarian aspect, this rule
makes for unrealism by masking the tremendous differences in
the capacities, resources, interests, and involvements of states, and
bestows upon lesser states a disproportionate influence in inter-
national agencies which discourages powers whose Tole is thus
artificially minimized from taking the agencies seriously or en-
trusting important functions to them. In posing the requirement
of unanimity, the rule ignores the hard fact that differences of
interest and judgment make universal agreement a rare phenom-
enon in any society, whether of states or of individuals; “to lay
down the principle that in an international organization every
important decision must be adopted unanimously ... is to ad-
mit that among nations no real organization is possible, for the
rule of unanimity may lead to paralysis and anarchy." *

These two aspects are intimately interrelated. The unrealism of
equality is practically insignificant, although it may be offensive
to the national pride of underprivileged great powers, so long as
the rule of unanimity makes one vote as effective as two or twenty
for blocking action. The two concepts break down together; when
the universal veto gives way to some brand of majoritarianism,
distribution of voting power takes on real importance, and the
search for a realistic pattern begins in earnest. Moreover, the
significance of both equality and unanimity is decisively related

•Advisory Opinion No. 12 (Series B/12) . Manley O. Hudson, ed, World Court
Reports (Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1951) . I.
740-741.

‘Nicolas Pohtis, The New Aspects of International Law (Washington: Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, 1928) , p. 10.

THE PROBLEM OF VOTING

to the legal quality of the authority vested in international insti-
tutions. So long as the latter have constitutional competence only
to decide to advise or recommend, or to make binding decisions
relevant to minor technical matters or internal housekeeping de-
tails, voting arrangements are relatively inconsequential; great
powers may acquiesce in formal equality and all states may be
willing to dispense with the veto. However, an increase in the
legal authoritativeness and political weightiness of the decisions
which lie within the competence of international organization
carries with it a corresponding increase in the sensitivity of issues
related to voting arrangements.

The process of international organization has involved the
steady lifting of the dead hand of the unanimity rule. Minor
modifications of the rule were achieved in a number of public
international unions in the nineteenth century. The Hague Con-
ferences departed from diplomatic orthodoxy by permitting the
passage of voeux ("wishes” or recommendations) by majority
vote. The League of Nations gave impetus to the majoritamn
trend by developing a variety of methods for expanding the
limited number of exceptions to the unanimity rule stipulated in
the Covenant. 6 The International Labor Organization, established
in dose relationship to the League, reversed the traditional prin-
ciple by making simple majority voting the rule, and more
stringent voting requirements the exception. _ ....

When the world inaugurated a new phase of institution-buil -
ing during and after the Second World War, it effected t e genera
repudiation of the unanimity rule. In contrast to t ie eague
Covenant, which merely made concessions to tnajoritarianism.
the United Nations Charter and the constitutional documents ol
the Specialized Agencies establish the rule of simp e or extraor
dinaty majorities in ail the organs, major and minor, of the post-
war organizational system. The old-fashioned principle ol una-
nimuy, in its pure form, survives only in some o t le regio
organizations and some ad hoc international con cren ^”' .'
C. W. jcnks has commented. "The battle to subsmme inajor.ty
decision for the requirement of unanimity in interna i
Sanitation has now been largely won.” After noting the changes

•Cromwell \ Richer. The Unanimity Rut* and the League °/ Satumt (!U
“ore Juhm llupkini. 19S3)

THE PROBLEM OF VOTING

131

out the expression of majority will in virtually all agencies of
the United Nations system.

A realistic analysis of the extent to which majority rule has
become genuinely operative in international organizations must
deal not only with the question of whether agencies can decide
by majority vote but also with the question of what they can
decide in that manner. A decision to recommend or to propose
is not the same as a decision to impose legal obligation, and it is
clear that the triumph of majoritarianism has been achieved
primarily in regard to the former, not the latter, type of decision.
Today’s typical international body applies the majority rule to
passage of recommendations which states may respect or ignore
at their pleasure, to adoption of legislative conventions which
bind each member state only if it chooses to ratify them, and to
proposal of amendments to organizational constitutions which in
many cases become effective for a state only upon its formal ac-
ceptance and which in any case a state may evade by resort to the
expedient of withdrawing from the organization.

The question as to what may be decided by majority vote
pertains also to the nature of the subject matter to which organiza-
tional decisions refer. In general, there is an inverse relationship
between the importance attached to a subject and the disposition
of states to permit international agencies to act on the subject
by majority vote. In the present stage of international organiza-
tion, nonunanimous decisions with binding effect tend to e con
stitutionally confined to matters of mainly technical importance
or of not more than minor political concern. When fundamenta
security questions are involved, the traditional unanimity ru e
applies, as in the NATO Council; when major political issues
are involved, the technique of legislation ad referendum is uti-
lized, as in the General Assembly's approval of the Genocide
Convention for submission to the states for voluntary rati cation.

or mere nonbinding resolutions are passed. ,

All this is not to minimize the significance of the advances
toward majoritarianism which have taken place. A survey °
basic documents of the United Nations and its affiliated organiza-
tions reveals that truly remarkable strides have been made in i
direction of determining organizational policy an co " .
organizational activities by majority vote, as well as app y 0

132

SWORDS into plowshare:

majority principle to the adoption o£ regulations binding upon
member states

For instance, the General Assembly operates without any
semblance of the veto principle in carrying out its functions of
policy direction and administrative management for virtually all
parts of the United Nations machinery except the Security Coun-
cil. In this sense, the Assembly is a genuine international legis-
lature, acting by simple or two-thirds majority — and it becomes
clear that this is not a minor sense when we reflect that a large
and increasing proportion of the legislative activity of such na-
tional bodies as the United States Congress or the British Parlia-
ment is concerned with authorizing, directing, and controlling
the operations of government departments and agencies rather
than addressing commands and prohibitions to private citizens.
An approach to majority-based legislation in the latter sense can
be seen in the provisions of most organizations of the United Na-
tions system for assigning budgetary shares to member states, in
the competence of such agencies as the World Health Organiza-
tion and the International Civil Aviation Organization to adopt
technical regulations applicable to all members unless they ex-
plicitly opt out, and in the capacity of such agencies as the Inter-
national Labor Organization and the Food and Agriculture Or-
ganization to adopt conventions and recommendations which
member states are bound, if not to accept, at least to take into
consideration and to recognize as policy standards in regular re-
ports to be submitted to the agencies. These illustrations, which
could be multiplied, 1 bear out the thesis that minor and quasi-
legislative powers of the citizen-commanding as distinguished
from the bureaucrat-directing variety are being increasingly en-
trusted to voting majorities of international organizations.

SWORDS

NTO PLOWSHARES

134

The general acknowledgment of this point means that the
majontanan trend in international organization inaugurates a
debate concerning the distribution of voting power. Majority
voting may solve some problems, but it introduces the problem of
weighted voting. . .

In the historical development of international organization,
various devices for giving institutional recognition to the rea
inequalities of states have been invented. The Universal Postal
Union introduced the practice of assigning extra votes to colonia
powers by according membership status to overseas possessions
under their control. The International Institute of Agriculture,
established in 1905, set a precedent for such present-day agencies
as the International Bank and the International Monetary Fund
by allocating voting power to members in correspondence with
the size of their financial contributions. In a number of agencies
dealing with problems of international commerce in particular
commodities, voting power has been distributed in such a way
as to create a balance between importing and exporting states,
and to give special weight to the more important participants in
international trade. The Council of Europe and the European
Coal and Steel Community have assemblies in which voting
inequalities are roughly correlated with population differences.

In some cases, weighting has been accomplished without tam-
pering with the formal rule of “one state, one vote.” For instance,
the technique of granting permanent or constitutionally assured
membership in organs of the "executive committee” type to the
more important states was introduced in the treaty provisions
concerning the composition of the Governing Body of the Inter-
national Labor Organization and the Council of the League.
This technique, sometimes supplemented by the device of giving
the major states "bigger” votes without giving them "more
votes, has found increasing favor in organizational developments
since World War II. The United Nations Charter, for example,
nowhere permits one member to cast more than one vote, except
in the sense that it allows the Soviet Union multiple voting power
through its control over the Ukrainian S.S.R. and Byelorussian
S.S.R. and that it does not exclude the great powers generally
from dominating the voting behavior of members which are
factually if not legally subject to their control. However, »t

THE PROBLEM OF VOTING

135

manipulates the pattern o£ voting strength by guaranteeing a
balance between administering powers and nonadministering
powers in the Trusteeship Council, and gives institutional recog-
nition to a heavyweight class of five great powers by providing
them with permanent membership in the Security and Trustee-
ship Councils, a monopoly of membership in the Military Staff
Committee, special status in connection with the Transitional
Security Arrangements described in Chapter XVII of the Charter,
and decisively “big” single votes in major activities of the Security
Council, in the process of bringing the Charter into force, and in
the amending process.

Despite the approaches to weighting of voting power which
Have been developed, it cannot be said that the problem intro-
duced by the rise of majoritarianism has been solved. The Gen-
eral Assembly of the United Nations is likely to become the most
significant battleground of the future struggle over equality;
already there are signs of an increasing interest in the possibility
of redistributing voting rights in that body. American reactions
to that idea are illustrative of a basic dilemma. Secretary of State
Dulles, recognizing and generally approving the assumption by
the Assembly of increasingly important responsibilities and func-
tions, is seriously inclined toward the introduction of weighted
voting;” whereas Senator Bricker has indicated opposition to
that concept on the ground that it "paves the way for vesting the
General Assembly with legislative authority” and points toward
the establishment of world government . 12

This disagreement is analogous to the conflict which has long
characterized the discussion of such matters as the reform of the
British House of Lords and the democratization of the office of
President in European parliamentary systems: the conflict be-
tween reform, to make the institution democratically fit to ex-
ercise important authority, and rejection of reform, to justify
deprivation of authority on the ground of democratic unfitness.
It seems evident that great powers will not permit agencies in
which their influence is artificially limited by the rule of voting

11 See Dulles' testimony of January
P T, see also. Representation and Voting i
PP 8 11

u Cited in Representation and Voting i;
PP 22 23.

$54, Charter Review Hearing, Part 1.
the United Nations General Assembly,

the United Nations General Assembly,

SWORDS

ITO PLOWSHARFS

136

equality to develop significant majoritarian authority; it is also
probable that they will resist the establishment of weighted voting
in such organs as the General Assembly, for fear of losing their
best excuse for opposition to expansion of the competence of
international voting majorities.

The problem of “democratizing” the General Assembly by
establishing differential voting capacities for its members is also
complicated by other factors. The small states, which are presently
overrepresented, are unlikely to favor the prospect of losing their
advantageous position. Resentful of the great powers’ predomi-
nance elsewhere in the organization, they regard the General
Assembly as a necessary and proper stronghold of equalitarianism.
The great powers, which share the grievance of underrepresenta-
tion in the Assembly, are unlikely to discover a common interest
in any particular plan for altering the pattern of voting strength.

Objectively, the difficult question is: what shall be weighted?
What factors — population, literacy, wealth, industrial production,
military strength, budgetary contribution, etc. — should be in-
cluded, and in what proportions, in a formula for weighted
voting? Subjectively, the controversial issue is: who shall be
weighted? What power, or bloc of powers, is to have predominant
voting strength in the Assembly? It is safe to assume that, in any
serious attempt to lay the foundation for a rudimentary world
parliament by altering the equal voting principle of the General
Assembly, the subjective aspect of the problem would overshadow
the objective aspect. For better or worse, it appears that the
United Nations voting system, with its numerous concessions to
the superiority of the great powers — which do not spell democ-
rac 7 an d 't 5 unmitigated equalitarianism in the Assembly
which represents no attempt to meet the realistic requirements of
democracy — will be characteristic of general international or-
ganization for the indefinite future.

Even if the development of majority voting in international
organization could be described as a genuinely democratic trend,
its desirability would still be open to question.

Majority rule is not a natural law of social morality. Intra*
nationally, it seems to have developed first as an expedient, a
convenient procedural device, and later to have been rationalized
in ideological terms. In democratic thought, majoritarianism it 31

THE PROBLEM OF VOTING

137

a moral flavor only in so far as it is substituted for minority rule;
if moral legitimacy rests upon the "consent of the governed
principle, unanimous decision certainly has the edge over major-
ity consent. In these terms, the shift from unanimity to majority
rule is something other than a triumph of political morality.

However, the real objection to the principle of the liberum
veto is not that it means unanimity rule but that it in fact means
minority rule; it confers upon a minority of one the procedural
competence and the moral authority to determine policy in a
negative fashion. In these terms, the acceptance of majority rule
represents both moral progress, so far as the minority is con-
cerned, and a triumph for the possibility of effectively operating
institutions, so far as the majority is concerned. Unanimity is the
best guarantee of a "just” decision, but it carries the danger of the
imposition of "no decision” by a minority; majority rule increases
the probability of "some decision” and invests that decision with
a moral force intermediate in strength between that afforded by
unanimous and minority actions. ...

The institutional-efficiency basis for international majoritanan-
ism is decidedly sounder than the moral-legitimacy basts. Yet, in
the final analysis, the two considerations cannot be separated.
Majority rule works, and thus acquires pragmatic justification,
only if its moral legitimacy is generally accepted. Progress in
political morality is not so much a product of majontariamsm, to
be achieved by acceptance of majority rule, as a precondition tor
majoritarianism; the majority principle is not better t an t e
unanimity principle, but it is a basis for more effective action
which exists only in so far as an appropriately advanced mora
consensus has been realized in the community. The pro em is
not to find moral justification for majority rule, but to bui
moral foundations for the pragmatically justifiable majority ru e.
And there is the rub so far as international organization is con-

cerned . . ,

The limits of effective majoritarian action within the formal
voting provisions already established in international agencies,
and of the expansibility of the majoritarian aspect o ° s ...
visions, are set by the attitudes of majorities and mi
toward each other and toward the larger community. Majority
rule works only when the minority has such con enc

153 S'™™* ,,,TO

ultimate reasonableness of the ntajority and such convtaion of
the ultimate community of majority and m.nonty interests that
can alford to respect the right of the majority to rule s.ithout
undue obstruction. Conversely, the situation demands that the
majority recognize the rights of the minority and assume its basic
loyalty to the rules of the game and the interests o the com-
munity, so that the majority can be prepared to rule wthotlj
undue suppression. This condition exists only to a very limitea
extent in the international community. By and large, neitie
majorities nor minorities in the United Nations are spiritua y
fit to play their roles in a majoritarian system. Within areas ot
recognized common interest and relatively slight involvement o
fundamental political concerns, acceptance of the majority prm
ciple lias become feasible; but, as Riches has put it, In t if
absence of a recognized community of interest and of agreement
upon objectives, majority decision is impossible for the reason
that the minority sees no reason for acquiescing in the decisions

which might be reached by the majority." **

Indeed, majority rule has no valid claim of legitimacy apart
from the existence of a basic moral consensus. We ought to be
on guard against the naive tendency of some internationalists to
assume that decisions of international majorities are infallibly
just and impartial; national-minded sinners are not transforme
into world-minded saints by coalescing to form a majority voting

bloc in the General Assembly.

Karl Marx regarded the state as an inherently oppressive body,
an agency by which the ruling class enforced and perpetuated its
dictatorship over the underdogs. It could be nothing else, he
argued, became national societies were nothing but arenas ot
inexorable class conflict. Marx was wrong about his facts; some
national societies were already, and others were on the verge ot
becoming, genuine communities capable of using their states as
agencies for harmonizing particular interests within the frame-
work of a conception of community interest. But he was right
about his theory; if and when group conflicts are as irreconcilable
as Marx thought they were and had to be in capitalist countries.

“Oorawll A Riches. Mcjerilj Rule in International O'ganitation (Billin' 0 **'
John* lloptmi. 1940) , p. 296.

THE PROBLEM OF VOTING

139

the state can be nothing other than what Marx thought it was in
capitalist countries.

Marx's insight can be transferred to the realm of international
organization. If states are so fundamentally divided that inter-
national society is essentially an arena of national struggle rather
than a community, there is no real possibility that an international
government or international organization can be anything other
than an instrument which competitive states and blocs seek to
capture for use in tvaging the bitter struggle. Such an agency can
function as an impartial servant and guardian of community
interests only to the extent that a genuine community has
emerged. It is clear that contemporary world society has hardly
begun to develop the consensual basis for giving majority rule the
moral dignity that it has in an integrated community.

Under these circumstances, it may be doubted whether the
trend toward registration of the will of a majority of member
states as "international decisions” represents sound progress for
international organization. Majority decisions in the equalitamn
General Assembly are likely to be undemocratic in the sense that
they do not represent a majority of the world's population, un-
realistic in the sense that they do not reflect the greater portion of
the world’s real power, morally unimpressive in the sense that
they cannot be identified as expressions of the dominant will o
a genuine community, and for all these reasons ineffectual an

perhaps even dangerous. _ .

The prematurity of majority voting in the United Nations is
best symbolized by the tendency of the Soviet bloc to function as
a permanent minority. The weakness of community consensus
makes it impossible to persuade that bloc by invocation o t ie
moral appeal of majoritarianism; nothing has happcnct in t ie
United Nations to give the USSR reason to abandon or modify
iu conviction that it is confronted by an unsympathetic Wr«ty
using votes as tools of foreign policy, In favor nt the ■ M* f hat
i. enveloped in a world <ou.nn.nlly In n 'lel. ne>jn ''.m n m
prov.de, .he valid expreolon o( a .o..mn.n t, wall. 11«
of .he global power

oiajomy daemon upon .he S« ' a .pecio...

the present moral tonic**. \otn*k

140

SWORDS

TO PLOWSHARES

sense o£ moral superiority among the majority, which exacerbates
irritation, encourages uncompromising attitudes, and tempts the
majority to stress outvoting the minority rather than reaching
agreement with the minority. In the present power context, «
promotes decision-making without a sense of responsibility to the

realistic limits of policy.

It is possible that a minimal community of interest may sooner
or later be discovered or developed by the opposing Soviet an
Western coalitions; the assumption that international conflicts
are eternally irreconcilable is no more tenable than Marx’s similar
assumption concerning the class struggle. But the exploitation o
this possibility is more likely to be impeded than promoted by
competitive voting. The shift to the battle of the ballot box is the
result, not the cause, of the transformation of a society from a
bundle of profound antagonisms into a meaningful community.

Excessive emphasis upon the power to mobilize a voting major-
ity obscures the fundamental truth that, in the world as it really
is, voting does not solve problems or resolve conflicts. The case
for old-fashioned unanimity is not that it comports with the old-
fashioned doctrine of sovereignty, but that it focuses attention
upon the present reality that the great issues of international
conflict will yield only to the process of persuasion, compromise,
and agreement. Major itarianism serves the world badly by
putting a premium upon the unacceptable proposal which can be
voted over minority opposition rather than the bargaining pro-
posal which may be tailored to agreement with the minority.

All this is not to say that voting will never become a proper and
effective device for managing the problems of the world. It may,
but this depends upon developments in the nature of the world
political system, not upon innovations in the mechanics of the
organizational voting system. Majority voting has achieved a
significant role in international organization; at the moment, it
appears that the world has more, not less, majoritarianism than it
is morally equipped to handle or realistically capable of putting
to effective use.

THE PROBLEM OF VOTINC

SUGGESTED READINGS

Ball, M. Margaret, “Bloc Voting in the General Assembly,” Inter-
national Organization, February 1951, pp. 3-31.

Koo, Wellington, Jr., Voting Procedures in International Political
Organizations, New York: Columbia University Press, 1917.

Representation and Voting in the United Nations General Assembly,
Staff Study No. 4, Subcommittee on the United Nations Charter,
Committee on Foreign Relations. United States Senate, 83rd Con-
gress, 2nd Session, Washington: Government Printing Office, 1951.

Riches, Cromwell A., Majority Rule in International Organization,
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1910.

Riches, Cromwell A., The Unanimity Rule and the League of Nations,
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1933.

Riggs, Robeit E., Politics in the United Nations: A Study of United
States Influence in the General Assembly, Urbana: University of Illi-
nois Press, 1958.

CHAPTER

The Veto Problem in the
United Nations

By all odds the best publicized constitutional problem of the
United Nations is that of the great power veto. Scratch the
consciousness of an apolitical American citizen with the initials,
"U.N.,” and he will respond with one word — "veto." The veto
problem has become the symbol of the cold war and of the
inadequacies of current efforts to deal with that phenomenon
through international organization. Accurately or not, the veto is
generally understood to be the critical defect of the United
Nations.

The veto problem is a specialized version of the general prob-
lems which were considered in Chapter 7. It is at once an ex-
pression of the progressive trend toward abandonment of the
unrealistic and undemocratic proposition that every state, how-
ever large or small, should have the same voice in international
decisions, and a product of conservative resistance to the general
tendency to introduce the majority voting rule in Internationa
agencies. That is to say, analysis of the veto arrangement shoul
include Article 23 as well as Article 27 of the Charter; it i* a*
significant that the designated “Big Five” powers — China, France,
the Soviet Union, Britain, and the United States — are g>' en
permanent membership in the Security Council and peculiar

142

THE VETO PROBLEM IN THE UNITED NATIONS

143

responsibility for its operation, as that they are allowed the com-
petence to block action of the Council on nonprocedural matters
by withholding their concurrence. In the former sense, the ar-
rangement constitutes an important segment of the Charters
progress toward institutionalization of the special role of great
powers in international organization, which goes well beyond the
League Covenant's limited attribution of unequal weight to the
major states. 1 In the latter sense, the arrangement represents a
lagging point in the general development toward majoritarianism;
the great power veto in the Security Council and in the amending
process is the sole surviving relic of the traditional unanimity
requirement which still occupied a place of formal supremacy in
the Covenant. From one point of view, the veto represents a ho
ing out against the new principle of majority decision; from
another, it represents the understandable demand of great powers
for weighting of votes which derives from acceptance of the new

principle.

In constitutional terms, the veto rule derives from the provi-
sions of Article 27 of the Charter, which states that Security
Council decisions "on procedural matters shall be ma e V 1 1C
affirmative votes of any seven of that body’s eleven members, ut
that decisions on “all other matters” shall require seven affirma-
tive votes "including the concurring votes of the permanent mem-
bers.” Thus, any of the Big Five can unilaterally defeat any
Security Council proposal other than one relating to proce ure,
except that it, like ordinary members of the Council, must re am
from voting when the Council considers the possible means o
peaceful settlement of disputes to which it is a party- In ’

the veto power applies to pacific settlement under Chapter
Well as to enforcement measures to maintain peace un er ia P
VH; a great power can veto a proposal for enforcement ac
even if it is directed against itself; a particular great powe
debarred from using its veto only if it is directly imo ve i
dispute which is the subject of peaceful settlement efforts ana
even in that case the veto power of the other permanent me

‘The Covenant provided for permanent membership of the ^” {un ^ ion , be-
fte Council (Article 4. paragraph l) . but It gave them no power*
yond those of other Council members.

144

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

remains effective; a great powei can use its right of veto to frus-
trate either pacific settlement or more drastic action in cases in-
volving its friends, allies, or satellites.

Moreover, the great powers agreed among themselves at San
Francisco, in a Statement of Interpretation submitted to the
Conference, 8 that the unanimity rule should prevail in voting on
the preliminary question as to whether or not a matter should be
considered procedural and thus not subject to veto. This "double
veto” principle seemed to authorize any great power to veto any
effort to remove matters from the range of its veto, thereby
permitting the indefinite extension of the capacity for negation
assigned to the permanent members. Finally, in Articles 108 and
109, the great powers were given the competence to veto any possi-
ble efforts to abolish their veto right by constitutional amend-
ment. There can be no doubt that the principle of great power
unanimity was implanted in the Charter with deliberate firmness.

An interpretation of this action of the San Francisco Conference
can best be stated in negative terms. In the present-day climate of
reaction against the veto and misunderstanding of the veto, it is
most essential to be clear about what the veto is not, what it was
not intended to be, and what it was not expected to be.

The Adoption of the Veto Rule

In the first place, the veto provision was not an illiberal rule
insisted upon by the Soviet Union over the opposition of the
more progressive-minded great powers of the West. American
resentment of the Soviet use of the veto has tended to give birth
to this myth; even so estimable a statesman as Senator John Sher-
man Cooper was moved to ask in 1954, “Isn’t it true that the
United States, at the time of the approval of the charter, was op-
posed to the veto?” 8 Nothing could be further from the truth.
Provisions for the veto right of the great powers appeared regu-
larly in the preliminary drafts for a general international or-
ganization 'which were made by planners in the United States

•For the text of this statement, see L. M. Goodrich and E. Harobro. Charter of
the United Nations. Commentary and Documents (2d ed.; Boston: World Pea «
Foundation, 1949) . pp. 216 218.

• Charter Remew Hearing, Part 1, p 17,

145

THE VETO PROBLEM IN THE UNITED NATIONS

Government. 4 Throughout the negotiations looking toward the
establishment of the United Nations— at Dumbarton Oaks, at
Yalta, and at San Francisco— the United States stood shoulder to
shoulder with the other leading powers in supporting this con-
cept. Indeed, Secretary of State Hull, in discussing a preliminary
draft Charter with a group of Senators in May 1944, asserted that
the veto principle was incoiporated in it “primarily on account of
the United States,” and, with respect to the proposed Security
Council, that “our Government would not remain there a day

without retaining its veto power." 8

Nevertheless, it has frequently been alleged that the United
States stood for a more modest version of the veto power than the
Soviet Union desired, and that the formula worked out at Yalta
and ultimately adopted at San Francisco represented a com-
promise” between the two positions * It is true that the USSR en-
tered the negotiations with a more nearly absolutist view of the
essential veto power than its Western great power colleagues, but
it would appear from the available evidence that the final arrange-
ment represented a defeat for the Soviet Union rather than a
compromise with that state. The Soviet Union gave up its c aim
of right to veto acceptance of disputes for discussion Y 1 *
Security Council, in response to pressure from the Unite es

and other Western powers. 7 ,

The central issue in the debate concerning the veto among t e
great powers at Dumbarton Oaks and Yalta was the extent o
which a permanent member of the Security Counci s ou
required to abstain from voting in regard to disputes mvo ving
itself as a party. The Soviet Union fought vigorously for the veto
right in all cases, with complete disregard for the ideal conce P
that no one should be a judge in his own case, but it was n
prevailed upon to accept the formula suggested by Roosevelt
the Yalta Conference, barring members of the Counci to
voting or vetoing in proceedings looking toward peaceful

Postuar Foreign Policy Preparation, Appendixes IS. 23. 3 j, 38, 4.. 5..

'The Memoirs of Cordell Hull, II. 1682. 1664. “The Genesis

‘For the ■•compromise- concept, see. tor instance D^ght E bee. ^

' «he Veto.” International Organization, February 19 "j, P . , ' reut jon agreed
'Tht, Sotict concession was Registered In the * al ™' n ‘^ ln ^^rich and
“ by the sponsoring powers and France at San Fra
lunbro, toe. tit.

146

‘SWORDS INTO PLOWSHA**!

ment of disputes in which they were directly involved and per-
mining interested parties to use their normal voting power in a
other circumstances.* _ , .

So far as the United States was concerned, it appears that i
was a deai-cut victory. It could be described as a compromise
only if the United States had clearly and firmly stood for the
absolute exclusion of parties from voting in their own cases, at a
stages of Security Council consideration of disputes. However,
this was not the case. In pre-Dumbarton Oaks drafts, the tan
Department planners had wavered indecisively in regard to
problem. In two 1943 drafts, which assumed the gTant o p er
manent seats in the Council to the Big Four (excluding
from the great power team), they had proposed the compu
abstention of parties from votes on peaceful settlement but n<^
from votes on enforcement measures, although they favore
rule that only three of the Big Four votes should be requit ®
decisions of the latter sort • In December 1913, they had * U S° W / .
the total exclusion of a great power's vote in disputes to '”J lC ’
might be a party, whereas in April 1941, they had dropped a ^
gether the notion of compulsory abstention of interested P 311 )®'
The American mind, after having considered all these po ssl
ties, was not made up at the beginning of the consultations
Dumbarton Oaks; the United States proposals presented at
conference referred to the problem of voting by parties to d“P“
as one with respect to which “Provisions will need to be " or
out. . . U In these crucial discussions among the great P°" *
the United States took the side of Britain, which had consist* ^
stood for complete application of the rule against voting in
own case in contrast to the Soviet Union's consistent deman
the complete rejection of that rule, but even then the Americ
delegation was internally divided as to whether the rule sno
be applied beyond the pacific settlement stage. 11 Subsequen 'h
leading British statesmen, including Churchill and Cripp s * 5 " °
strongly toward complete acceptance of the Soviet view.”

THE VETO FRi

LEM IN THE UNITED NATIONS

147

In the light of this record of vacillation by the United States
and, to a lesser degree, by Britain, it appears that the final deci-
sion, as expressed in the Yalta voting formula, represented pre-
cisely what the Western powers finally decided they really wanted,
not a middle ground between what they wanted and what the
USSR demanded. This conclusion is supported by the fact that
the United States has never, in its various suggestions for reducing
the scope of the veto power, intimated a desire to introduce a
barrier to a great power’s using the veto to kill proposals for
enforcement action directed against itself.

The provision permitting a permanent member of the Security
Council to block action on disputes involving itself, except action
relating to peaceful adjustment, is one of the most damaging parts
of the entire veto arrangement from the standpoint of those who
favor the progressive development of the effective operating
capacity of international organization. Indeed, one scholar has
asserted that “The main defect of the voting provisions of the
Charter does not lie in the requirement of the unanimity of the
permanent members . . . but in the limited scope of the com-

pulsory abstention.” 14 Nevertheless, this aspect of the veto power
commanded the full support of all the Big Five in their successful
campaign to make constitutional recognition of their special
status an essential condition for the creation of the United Na-
tions. The veto rule, as it stands, was not a reluctant concession y
‘‘enlightened” great powers to the reactionary demands of the
Soviet Union. .

A second negative proposition which needs to be establishe is
that the adoption of the principle of great power unanimity as a
prerequisite for Security Council action did not reflect an igno-
rant and simple-minded inability to assimilate the lessons con-
cerning the requirements for effective international organization
which the experience of the League had made available.

The League had failed, and it had been founded upon tlic
principle of unanimity. However, there was little in the recort
t0 support die view that the League had collapsed prirnan y c
«use of the veto, or that it had been obviously doomed from the
beginning because it had incorporated that concept in its oun ^

“tduauJo j lrT ,fnei de Arfchaga, Poting and rftr W«"d/mg *1950) .

S'runi, Council (New York- Carnegie Endowment for Intenutio

SWOI

148

lions. Viscount Cecil (formerly
that:

ROS INTO PLOWSHARES

Lord Robert Cecil) had written

I do not . . . regard the so-called unanimity rule as a blot upon
League procedure. At the worst it may have made the “ nci
Assembly cautious in discussing radical proposals, but l at,
inclined to think, is, in international affairs, a good thing,
the number of cases in which a decision has been presented 7
failure to obtain unanimity is not great. Indeed I do not ^
any such case has occurred in any coercive action by the a S u •

It is notable that many of the best informed commentators on
the history of the League have regarded that organization not as
a ghastly mistake, condemned from the start to tragic failure
almost ludicrously inadequate and inappropriate constitution*
provisions, but as a near-miss — an experiment that might ' u
well have succeeded, that worked very well for a time, an
finally broke down primarily because of unfortunate area ^
stances and the mistaken policies and unenlightened attitu «
statesmen rather than because of intrinsic defects. 1 * As a. rt ^
spokesman at San Francisco put it, "Hard things arc said no'^
days about the League of Nations, that, by its very nature. »t 'V ^
inevitably doomed to failure. ... I would say that the pn nc, F
weakness of the League was not in its constitution or in its n atu •
but lay in the unwillingness of the nations to make the necessa
sacrifices to achieve its purposes.” 11 waS

In fact, the San Francisco decision concerning the veto 'j 0(r
deliberately contrived to prevent the new organization from * 1 ’
plagued by what was regarded as the critical defect of the Lea 0
the nonmembership of some of the great powers. Official .
can spokesmen never tired of reiterating the thesis that if they
to present a vetoless Charter to the Senate and public oj
United States, they would be unable to prevent the Unite
tions from being burdened with the same handicap of
abstention which had proved too much for the previous w
organization. The veto right was treated as the guarantee t a

„cf E*ptnment (New York: Oxford University Press. 1941)
* nd WaUen> A History of the League of St
ments o fin™ Con /e r enee on International Organization’

1941), PP- ,z '

Stleettd

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

150

abstractly perfect organizational system which any schoolboy
could have formulated but which no mere human beings could
have implemented in the real world. Their acceptance of the veto
was a testament to their awareness that the great powers would
not consent, on paper and still less in fact, to put their power re-
sources at the disposal of a sheer majority for the implementation
of decisions with which they were not in accord. Still more, it was
a symbol of their recognition that if one of the great potvers
should go on the aggressive warpath, the other leading states — all
states, for that matter — -would insist upon determining their
responses in the light of their own conceptions of national in-
terest. The incapacity of the Security Council to decide on en-
forcement action against a great power, which clearly derives from
Article 27 of the Charter, is not the result of an oversight, or of a
naive faith in the eternal peacefulness of all great powers, or of a
silly conviction that an ideal international system can exist with-
out depriving great powers of the capacity for throwing legal
monkey wrenches into the machinery of international sanctions.

Envisioning the possibility that one of the Big Five might be-
come an aggressor and use its veto to block Security Council
action against itself, Secretary of State Stettinius asserted that the
plain answer was that “a major war would result, no matter what
the membership and voting provisions of the Security Council
might be." 19 The official British Commentary on the Charter
recognized that "if such a situation arises, the United Nations will
have failed in its purpose and all members will have to act as
seems best in the circumstances.” 29 According to Leo Pasvolsky, a
leading American participant in the formulation of the Charter:

The underlying theory, however, was that if one of the major na-
tions were to prove recalcitrant, or were to refuse to abide by the
rules of international behavior that were being inscribed in the
Charter, a situation would be created in which the recalcitrant
nation might have to be coerced; and it was apparent that no
major nation could be coerced except by the combined forces of
the other major nations. This would he the equivalent of a world

*• T fee Charier of iht United Xalioni, Hearing! before the Committee on Foreign
Relations, United State i Senate, 79th Congress, lit Session (Washington - Govern-
ment Priming Office, 1915). p. 216.

"Cited bjr Sir Giadwyn Jebb. “The Rote of the United Nations." International
Organization, Notember 1952, p. 512.

THE VETO PROBLEM IN THE UNITED NATIONS 151

war, and a decision to embark upon such a war would necessarily
have to be made by each of the other major nations for itself and
not by any international organization. 21

These comments reflect no tendency to confuse a veto-hobbled
Security Council with an ideal mechanism for maintaining world
order; rather they indicate that the veto was incorporated in the
Charter as a concession to the realities of the existing power con-
figuration and policy orientation in the world of 1945.

The Veto in Practice

Turning to the actual operation of the United Nations, it
should be pointed out that the great power veto has not been the
constantly growing, indefinitely expansible, cancerous factor in
the life of the organization which has sometimes been supposed.

The veto has been used; up until the end of January 1954, the
USSR had invoked it on fifty-seven occasions, and France had
resorted to the veto once alone and once in combination with the
Soviet Union 22 From the standpoint of the effective working of
international organization, as well as that of the interest of non-
Communist states, it has clearly been abused by the Soviet Union.
It has been hung over the Security Council like a sword of
Damocles, posing a constant threat to its operations, discouraging
statesmen from attempting to do serious business in the Council,
and breeding contempt for that body in the minds of people
everywhere. It has contributed to the frustration of the univer-
salist urge of the United Nations and damaged the capacity of
the Security Council as an instrument of conciliation. Few ob-
servers would argue that the prophecy contained in the interpre-
tative statement of the great powers at San Francisco — that the
veto would be used with moderation and restraint, proving it a
relatively innocuous as well as a vitally important provision — has
been confirmed by events.

Nevertheless, the veto has assumed larger proportions in the

“••The United Nations In Action” Edmund J James Leelures on Government
(Ul-bana- University of Illinois Press, 1931). pp. 80 81. Cited in Schuroan, The
Commonwealth of Man, p 375.

"The Problem of the Veto in the United Rations Security Council, Staff Study
No J. Subcommittee on the United Nations Charter, Senate Committee on Foreign
Relations, 83rd Congress, 2nd Session, pp. 6-7.

jy> SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

minds of cynical critics and disillusioned idealists than in the
worUncs of the United Nations. The site oE the veto problem
cannot be accurately measured by tabulating the instances of its
use. Almost half of the Soviet vetoes have been used to prevent
the admission of new members: five of them have been devoted to
the exclusion of Italy.” In such cases, the number of vetoes is
obviously controllable by those svlio push proposals to a vote; the
Soviet purpose of keeping Italy out of the United Nations might
just as well have required two or ten or fifty or a thousand vetoes
as five. The arbitrariness of a list is also borne out by the fact tha
it cannot include the vetoes which were effective without being
cast. For instance, the United States let it be known in 1950 that
it would veto any candidate to replace Trygve Lie as Secretary-
General; 14 as it turned out, this threat was sufficient to prevent
the necessity of the American representative's casting a veto, llt
there is no limit to the number of vetoes which the United States
might have had to inscribe on the record in order to uphol ,ts
policy.

The "double veto" concept which was enunciated by the great
powers at San Francisco carried with it the theoretical possibility
that the range of matters potentially vulnerable to the veto m
the Security Council might be expanded without limit. Taken
literally, the rule that a permanent member can prevent a matter
from being designated as procedural means that anything is ve o-
able which a great power wishes to veto. In practice, however,
the tragically absurd potentialities opened up by the double ve o
have not been realized — a circumstance which supports the view
that it is the part of wisdom in the study of international or-
ganization to recognize that the worst does not always happen.

The Soviet Union has used the double veto on three occasions,
the last one on May 24, 1948.** In September 1950, China at-
tempted to invoke it in order to defeat an invitation to the Com-
munist Chinese authorities to sit in on discussions of the Formosa
question, but was defeated by a parliamentary maneuver even
more intricate than the double veto. This tactic, which might be

“See the tible on ”U«< of the Veto in the Security Council Through 1953.
Charter Review Documents, pp 577-580.

•Lie, In the Cause of Peace, pp. 379-581. _

■The Problem of the Veto in the United Nations Security Council, p- *#•

THE VETO PROBLEM IN THE UNITED NATIONS 153

described as a method o£ converting a hit-and-run play into a
double play, featured the President of the Council at second base,
in the pivotal position. China voted against the invitation, and
claimed that its negative vote had constituted a veto, on the
ground that the question was one of substance. The question of
the procedural character of the original issue was then put to
the Council, and China alone voted in the negative. At this point,
the Chinese representative alleged that he had completed the
double veto maneuver, but the President, who was on that occa-
sion the British representative, ruled that the second vote had
established the procedural, nonvetoable, nature of the first resolu-
tion. China's cause was lost, since the rules of procedure of the
Council provide that a ruling from the chair can be overturned
only by seven hostile votes, and it was clearly impossible for China
to secure such affirmative support for its position.* 8

Jt is not certain that this procedure trill or can be used in every
future case to frustrate the double veto; it should be noted that
its victim in 1950 was the Nationalist Chinese regime, not one
of the genuinely great powers of the Council, that the subject at
issue was one which the Statement of Interpretation had estab-
lished as procedural rather than one which had been left in doubt,
and that the device has not been put to a second test. Moreover, it
is not clear that the double veto should be permanently elimi-
nated by use of this gadget, since the double veto is just as much
an instrument for protecting the great powers against the un-
constitutional reduction of their veto rights as for permitting
them to effect the unreasonable expansion of those rights. 27

The point here is that, far from serving as the basis for the
indefinite expansion of the scope of the veto power, the double
veto rule has been exploited only to a negligible extent and its
very availability for that purpose has become uncertain. If the
double veto is not dead, it is at any rate not very lively, and the
Formosa case suggests that it might not be too difficult to kill it
if it should become lively.

In fact, despite the popular assumption based upon exaggerated

Tor a fuller description of this anti-double veto device, see Jimenez de
Artchaga, op. cit., pp 12-15.

* T Cf. Leo Cross. “The Double Veto and the Four-Power Statement on Voting in
the Security Council." Harvard Late Review, December 1953, pp- 251-280.

156

SWORDS

ITO PLOWSHARiS

successful negotiations at the Hague; the states concerned con-
sidered themselves nonetheless congratulated. In October 1950,
a Soviet veto blocked the re-election o£ Secretary-General Lie; his
term of office was “extended” by the General Assembly.

It is true that the veto provides a theoretically absolute check
against the admission of new members to the United Nations.
The recent history of the organization indicates, however, that
stalemates over membership are traceable primarily to sheer po-
litical intransigence, and that the obstacle of the veto may be
removed by political bargaining, even though it cannot be circum-
vented by legal maneuvering.

It is also true that the veto stands as an absolute barrier to the
formal amendment of the Charter. However, the Charter can be,
and has been, modified in substance if not in formal terms by
means which are invulnerable to the veto.

Attention might be drawn to the Soviet Union’s unilateral
blocking of the development of plans for international control of
atomic and other armaments; surely this is one vitally important
sphere in which no method has been found for overcoming the
effect of the veto. But in this case the veto is etched deeply into
the realities of international power politics, not simply inscribed
on the surface of a constitutional document. Regardless of what
voting scheme might be used in the Security Council, effectuation
of a world armaments control plan would require the consent of
all the states with significant military strength. Erasure of the
veto from the Charter would not affect the veto which is ivritten,
indelibly for all presently practical purposes, in the pattern of
world power. A veto is at fault here, but it is not the veto of
Article 27 of the United Nations Charter.

The point is that the ambiguities and alternatives provided by
the Charter afford opportunities for circumventing the road-
block of the veto in virtually every significant case in which it is
the veto of Security Council procedure, rather than the veto of
sheer military-political reality, that impedes action. As we shall
see in subsequent chapters, these opportunities have been recog-
nized and utilized to a very considerable extent.

For those statesmen who want to make the United Nations an
effectively functioning institution, the veto is a troublesome hand-

157

THE VETO PROBLEM IN THE UNITED NATIONS

icap, but it is also a challenge to their faculties for creative adapta-
tion. Encumbered by such a deformity, the world organization
may never be able to run, but it has already demonstrated that
it can learn to get around.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Jimenez de Arichaga, Eduardo, Voting and the Handling of Disputes
in the Security Council, New York: Carnegie Endowment for Inter-
national Peace, 1950.

Lee, Dwight E.. "The Genesis of the Veto,” International Organiza-
tion, February 1947, pp- 33-42.

Moldaver, Arlette, "Repertoire of the Veto in the Security Council,
1916-1956,” International Organization, Spring 1957, pp. 261-274.

Padelford, Norman J., "The Use of the Veto,” International Organiza-
tion, June 1948, pp. 227-246.

The Problem of the Veto in the United Nations Security Council,
Stall Study No. 1, Subcommittee on the United Nations Charter,
Committee on Foreign Relations. United States Senate, 83rd Con-
gress, 2nd Session, Washington: Government Printing Office, 195 •

SWORDS

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

156

successful negotiations at the Hague; concerned con-

sidered themselves nonetheless congratulated. In October ,
a Soviet veto blocked the re-election ol Secretary-General Lte. ht.

c mat "attended” by the General Assembly.

i° true that the veto provides a thcoreticallyatacdutech
against the admission ol netv members to the Umted Nattons.
The recent history oi the organization indicates, howeve .
stalemates over membership are traceable primarily to i she P
litical intransigence, and that the obstacle ol the V » m ay be
removed by poliucal bargaining, even though it cannot
vented by legal maneuvering. _

It is also true that the veto stands as an absolute barrier
formal amendment of the Charter. However, the Charter can b
and has been, modified in substance if not m formal ter y
means which are invulnerable to the veto.

Attention might be drawn to the Soviet Unions uni late
blocking of the development of plans for international con ro
atomic and other armaments; surely this is one vitally impor
sphere in which no method has been found for over coming me
effect of the veto. But in this case the veto is etched deeply i
the realities of international power politics, not simply msen
on the surface of a constitutional document. Regardless o w
voting scheme might be used in the Security Council, effectuatio
of a world armaments control plan would require the comen
all the states with significant military strength. Erasure o t
veto from the Charter would not affect the veto which is written,
indelibly for all presently practical purposes, in the pattern o
world power. A veto is at fault here, but it is not the veto o
Article 27 of the United Nations Chaner. ,

The point is that the ambiguities and alternatives provide y
the Charter afford opportunities foT circumventing the roa
block of the veto in virtually every significant case in which it **
the veto of Security Council procedure, rather than the vet °
sheer military-political reality, that impedes action. As we s a ^
see in subsequent chapters, these opportunities have been recog
nized and utilized to a very considerable extent.

For those statesmen who want to make the United Nations an
effectively functioning institution, the veto is a troublesome 'a

159

CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION

lions of constitutional definition and redefinition which bedevil
the United States. The United Nations has problems of relation-
ship between its major organs which are not unlike those arising
out of the principle of "separation of powers" in the United
States Government, and issues pertaining to the balance between
the general organization and specialized, regional, and national
state institutions which are reminiscent of the problems engen-
dered by the federal principle, with its "division of powers,” in
the United States.

Such analogies as these should always be approached with an
eye to the danger of inaccuracy stemming from the fact of in-
complete comparability, but the comparison suggested here has
sufficient potential values to justify our taking the risk. What is
striking is that Americans spontaneously resort to the analogy,
but do not, by and large, transfer the wisdom of their own con-
stitutional experience to their thinking about the problems of
international organization. How can anyone familiar with Ameri-
can history expect a written constitution to be precisely self-
explanatory, or a judicial organ to serve or be permitted to serve
as the exclusive authoritative interpreter of such a document, or
an originally formulated jurisdictional equilibrium to stay put,
or political factors to be excluded from influencing the evolution
of constitutional relationships? If American experience proves
anything, it indicates that international constitutional develop-
ment will be marked by legalistic controversies that mask the
realities of political conflict, by issues that defy permanent solu-
tion and constantly reappear in different guises, and y t e
emergence of trends which reflect new combinations of interests
and new political conceptions more than they derive from lega
principles sanctified by constitutional scriptures. Strictly speaking,
the United Nations system is neither federal nor governmen ,
but the vicissitudes of the federal governmental experiment car-
ried out in the United States may offer many useful clues as to
its prospective constitutional problems.

Evolution of the Charter

In the first instance, the problem of constitutional «latlomhips
is one of interpretation. A basic document has been accepted as

Problems of Constitutional
Interpretation and
Development

The United Nations is a complex system of internation
machinery, established to supplement and in some measure
supervise other multilateral agencies and to provide proceduT
additional to the traditional methods for managing internation
business, and designed to coexist with the institutional structure^
of national states. In these circumstances, the problem of denning
relationships, delimiting jurisdictions, allocating functions, an
distributing powers among the component parts of the glo a i .
stitutional complex presents great difficulties. Moreover, t is
not just a problem to be solved, but a process to be continue-
A static analysis will be out of date when it is completed.
world is on the move, and nothing is more subject to change a
demands for change than the constitutional relationships o t e

elements of its untidy institutional structure.

This situation should not appear unfamiliar to an American,
who is accustomed to living under one of the most complies e
systems of government which men have ever devised or pout*
evolution has ever produced. The relational issues which a
contemporary international organization aTe closely analogous
— and, as we shall see, are substantively connected with the que

153

161

CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION

shall be no alternative. Whereas, in the past, governments have
often been more willing to forswear sovereignty on paper than
in fact, the reverse is now becoming increasingly the case; the
trimming of sovereignty may be facilitated if states are not pushed
to make formal admission of their subjection to that process.

The United Nations Charter hints at various possibilities. First,
its silence might imply that members retain the sovereign right
of unilateral interpretation; secondly, its designation of the In-
ternational Court of Justice as “the principal judicial organ of
the United Nations" * might serve as the logical basis for exclu-
sive idiance upon the court as an interpretative organ; finally,
its attribution to the General Assembly of competence to “discuss
any questions or any matters . . . relating to the powers and
functions of any organs provided for in the present Charter
might be regarded as a mandate for that body to serve as a con-

stitutional umpire.

In facl, the San Francisco Conference opted to leave the ques-
tion ol interpretation open. It declined to accept proposa l to
male the International Court of Justice "a supreme court within
the international administrative system.” with "the power to settle
conflicts of competence between international bodies, or to de-
termine the Ixnmdaries between international and domestic Jims-
diction.* It did not adopt a Belgian scheme to invest the General
Assembly with "sovereign competenre to interpret the provisions
of the Charter.” * It seemed to Hitt with the concept ol individual
interpretation by member states svhen it adopted a domestic juris-
diction clause .illicit pointedly omitted tbe Leagues ru e
national "no trespassing” signs are invalid unless approved by an
international body,* yet it clearly rejected tbe general application
of that concept. The record, o! the Conference summarne be
(hinging o! the founding lathers of the United “

problem of corolitutional interpretation: it was ^S a ' r
esitable that each organ would interpret for use t,e
parts of the Charter; this process svas so natural that t n

160 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

the blueprint [or the system. What hierarchical arrangements does
t establish, what jnrtsdictional lines doe, it draw, wha. ass ^
ments o! competence doe, it make! What subsunttve agreemeno
did it, dralters intend to incorporate in its term,! To mote to
the procedural plane, who or what agency ha, authority to inter-
pret the constitution! What rule, of interpretation are to be
applicable! On what basis, in the light of what cons, derations, in
accordance with what system of values, are interpretative ji.tl„-

ments to be made? , ,

The process o£ international organization has not been ■
by conditions making for the provision of easy answers to these
questions. The multilateral treaties which serve as constituttona
foundations for international agencies are seldom models of pre-
cision; diplomatic negotiators are likely on occasion to formu a
ambiguities which mask disagreements, rather than to succee n
drafting clear provisions which express genuine compromise o~
their differences. Thus, international constitutions are heavily
although not uniquely— dependent upon interpretation to supply
as well as to elucidate their meaning. No American htera
enough to read his own national Constitution ought to be gtu ty
of exaggerating the uniqueness of the United Nations Charter
as a device for indefinite postponement of embarrassing issues as
well as indefinite perpetuation of sacTed principles.

Although the charters of most contemporary Specialized Agen-
cies contain articles prescribing methods of resolving disputes con
ceming the meaning of basic provisions, the major constitutiona
documents of international organization — the Covenant of * e
League and the United Nations Chaner — have been notably e
ficient in this respect. This negligence might be taken as evidence
of a conservative intention to perpetuate the old rule of sover
eignty-oriented international law: in the absence of agreement
the contrary, international treaties can be authoritatively in ®
preted only by the unanimous judgment of the parties, and a*
ing such unanimity, each party has legal freedom to attribute o
them whatever meaning it wishes. However, it would appear t ^
in fact the blankness of major constitutional treaties in this regar
has reflected the inability of statesmen to reach formal agreemen
on an alternative and their disposition to rely on the informa
evolution of an alternative, rather than a determination that t ier

CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION

163

judicial review without explicit constitutional warrant, in an
atmosphere oE partisan political maneuvering, and it established
its role o£ supreme constitutional umpire in the face of powerful
opposition. Despite this development, the Court is only the ulti-
mately available and the not-quite-decisive reader of the Ameri-
can Constitution; most routine interpretations of the basic rules
of the game are made by the working organs of government, and
“final" decisions are evolved through the democratic political

process, only to be supplanted by later “final decisions, pro-
duced in the same way. In the long run, constitutional inter-
pretation in the United States is a function of the political de-
velopment of the nation, and even though the Supreme Court
plays what Americans have come to regard as an indispensable
part in that process, at any given time there are uncertainties as
to what is or is not "constitutional” for which not even the
existence of the Supreme Court provides an assured remedy. The
United Nations Charter is by no means uniquely deficient with
respect to the problem of constitutional interpretation.

At this point it becomes clear that, even though the problem
of constitutional relationships starts as a problem of interpreta
tion , it ends as a problem of development. Statically considered,
the Charter has to be interpreted; dynamically considered, it has
to evolve. The process of interpretation has to do with the clanh-
cation of constitutionally prescribed relationships at a given mo-
ment. It equally relates to the registration and, to some degree,
the shaping, promotion, and impeding, of developments tren
essentially political in nature. Sound constitutional interpreta-
tion, in international organization as in national governmen ,
balances insistence upon the legally formulated consensus o ie
past, awareness of the political configuration of the present, an
consciousness of the community’s requirements and demands lo
the future. This is not an easy stunt to perform in U ""'
States, and it is immensely more difficult in the Un.ted Nations.

It is hard to say whether the operative system of interpretation
in the United Nations is subject to criticism more bemuse ot
the identity of the agencies utilised for that purpose or because
Of the substantive nature of the interpretations produced Indeed,
these are closely related matters. To some extent, e

CONSTITUTIONAL INTFRPRITATION I** 3

idealism of the organizational development envisaged for the

future. •

In general, the latter tactic has been more successful. Anti-
judicialism has largely prevailed, and the prophecy of the San
Francisco Conference has been confirmed: the political organs of
the United Nations have tended to interpret the Charter for
themselves. They have acted so as to require the inference that
certain constitutional decisions have been reached more often
than they have adopted formal statements of constitutional posi-
tions precedent to action. They have overridden allegations of
their incompetence, and have paid little heed to the notion that
members may unilaterally interpret the Charter to their own ad-
vantage, even though they have had no means of compelling
member states formally to recant their outraged claims of un-
constitutionality. The Soviet Union, for instance, has raised that
contention on at least forty-seven occasions; the United Nations
cannot gain the satisfaction of extracting a confession of error
from the Soviets, but it can— and does— ignore the claim and act

as if it had been decisively rejected.* .

The antijudicialism of the United Nations is not an unmixed
good. In so far as it is a symbol and an instrument of the urge
to release the agencies of the system from the restraints and lim-
itations established at San Francisco, it points to significant Ha -
gers. We cannot dismiss as fantastic the anxiety that interna 10
organization might prove itself a new variety o tyranny, E °
in scope; in the long historical view, any tendency of tnternafonal
agencies to exhibit contempt for constitutional limitations is a
bad augury. Quite apart from this, the short-term prospects ot
the United Nations will be worsened if it gains the °

constitutional unruliness. The impression that t e wor n
ration casually rewrites its Charter to suit itself will have the
effect of strengthening the hands and increasing t e
its enemies, ranging from Americans who ms e a c
"rule of law" to Russians who are ever alert to
non-Communist states are unreliable treatypartners. The slretcn
ing of the Charter through undisciplined polmcal
is a poor way to mcrease the psychological readiness of stales

’Lie, In Cau*r of Pearr, pp. <52 <55-

SWORIH

161 SWORtX INTO PLOMHA1U

national Court of Juste, speaking through atlvisory opinions
has been called upon to serve as a const.tuttonal arbiter, n spite
of the good intennons registered by member states when the Gen-
eral Assembly recommended in 1017 that organs of the United
Nations system utilize the Court "to the greatest practicable ex-
tent in the progiess.se development of international law .
regard to constitutional interpretation," * the Court lias no g
nificantly approached the status of primary expositor of tne

The question of resorting to the Court lias frequently been
introduced as a conservative device by a state which has >een
placed on the political defensive and is desirous of obtaining a
strict construction of its obligations and its vulnerability °
United Nations interference and criticism. Almost as frequent y,
this move has met with the opposition of states which are on t ic
political offensive, and the latter have been able to carry their
point by appealing to tl.c corporate jealousy of the political orga
involved against attempts to limit its competence. For instanc ,
South Africa has been unable to test its hope that the nr
would rule against United Nations intrusion in its domestic racia
affairs because India, fearing defeat in a present political coniitc .
has succeeded in capitalizing upon the General Assembly s sensi-
tivity to the danger of subjecting its future development to i
impediment of a judicial re-emphasis upon the constitutional un-
derstandings of 1915. Proposals to invoke the opinion of the Cour^
have not always been conservatively motivated, but, right y or
wrongly, the prevalent view in the United Nations has been t a
judicial interpretation is inherently an exercise in the restatemen
of the legalities of the past. The political antagonists of the pr«
ent, competing for immediate advantage, divide between «j' 0 '
ing the respectability of the law established in the past an t ic

•See the following advisory opinions, officially reported In the annual'
of the International Court of Justice, Report! o{ Judgments, A dvis, O'? c

and Orders • Conditions of Admission of a Stale to Membership in t te{ j

Nations (1948); Reparation for Injuries Suffered in ihe Service of t ,

Nations (1919); Competence of the General Assembly for the Admissi ^
State to the United Nations (1950)1 International Status of South-' Na „ on j
(1950); and Fffect of Awards of Compensation Made by the Unite
Administrative Tribunal (1954).

• Charter Review Documents, pp. 482-48S.

)f|6 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

make s „mfkam gram* of competence to international agenda,
or the ideological receptivity of states which are frequently or
permanently m a minority position to the doctr.ne of majority
rule in international organization. ... >•

Aside from the psychological danger of constitutional unruli-
ness. there is the objective danger of constitutional unwieldmess.

1 here is no necessary correlation between the capacity of inter-
ested states to secure the expansion of the theoretical competence
of the United Nations or its particular organs and the capacity
of the organization to deal effectively with the matters brought
to it. Good health is not promoted by biting off more than on
can chew; the United Nations, like all infants, has developed its
incisors before its molars, and its most urgent need is increased
evidence of ability to chew, not expanded opportunities to bi e.

In the final analysis, antijudicialism as a device for protecting
the United Nations against legalistic sterilization is simply un-
necessary. The notion that international lawyers are a caste de-
voted to strapping fledgling international organizations in 1 1
straitjacket of sovereignty dies hard, but it deserves an obituary
in which the following facts are cited: In 1923, the Permanen
Court of International Justice held that the domestic jurist iction
of states, within which they are sovereignly immune from t c
intrusions of international organization, is a relative expanse, s«
ject to reduction in the course of the development of interna
tional relations. 10 In 1926, the same body found in the Constitu
tion of the International Labor Organization an implied grant o
authority for that agency to extend its activities into areas ear
ing upon, but not explicitly included within, its defined realm o
competence. 11 In 1949, the new World Court continued this tra-
dition by deducing a status of international personality for t ie
United Nations from the general intentions of its founders, an
produced the truly Marshallian dictum that "Under Internationa
law, the Organization must be deemed to have those powers
which, though not expressly provided in the Charter, are con
fened upon it by necessary implication as being essential to t e

“Nationality Decrees Issued in Tunis and Morocco . . . ■ Advisory Opi n ' on
4, February 7, 1923. Hudson. World Court Report j, I. 143-162. i v ,

“ Cnmnetencr of the International Labor Organization to jj'j* 1 ] 3 * ss**!? 8 ® ibid-.

*» Competence of the International Laoor urgan
the Personal Work of the Employer. Adsisory Opi

169

CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION

Ultimately, however, it would seem that someone must will
the general good, making it a primary value to be pursued di-
rectly and for its own sake. A community requires at the least a
devoted minority, and that is all any human community is likely
to have, except that it may possess the ultimately essential capacity
to evoke sporadically the supreme allegiance o£ virtually all its
members. This is very much the situation o£ the United States.
Most of us are Americans last, but not first and always; in a
critical emergency, wc can be counted on to offer to the national
interest our last full measure of devotion, but most of the time
the national interest must get along with contributions which are
a by-product of our particularistic strivings, supplemented by the
services of a few who are prepared to be Amencans first and
always, as well as last. The evolutionary deye! 1 °P mEnt °[ “ '
American constitutional system is a function of the comb nation
of tendencies released from selfish antagonisms and of objective,
deliberately pursued by the few whose vision embraces only

” TWtnatn of the United Nations is no. very diffetent
thi, The world otganita.ion lacks the capacity to command the
ultimate allegiance of mote than a handful of human bentp
it should be noted that the national state .1,0 lack thu except

for the purpose of its crucial aga infi other

do not die for their countries so much as tney “ ' * . ,

countries, and it is probably unrealistic to expect that the Un, ed
Nations of the earth can ever mobilize a

to-the-death unless it can manage to stir up a moml conn,ct .di
the United Nations of Mars. However the proves,, ye develop
ment of international organization in the twen i ..it interests of
dated and carried along by the antagonisms and “

slightly but perhaps increasingly enlightened states, . «
by the growth of a minute but vital body of » » «
elevates the international community interest to the peak

pyramid of values. . f Tu ,.; C e has treated

As we have seen, the International Court of Justice^ ^

constitutional issues of the United d WO rld order,

upon the development of an effective y _ r P l ^Ktical mottva-
IE the cynic insilts upon looking for national political m

J6g SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

Nations, to cloak the pursuit of selfish interests in temporarily
eternal devotion to the most convenient of available fundamental
constitutional principles. In so far as states are consciously con-
cerned to promote a particular trend of long-term development
in the United Nations, their choice is likely to reflect a concep-
tion of national interest rather than a considered view of the
ultimate organizational requirements of the world community.
Statesmen are still Frenchmen or Indians, Communists or anti-
Communists, colonialists or anticolonialists, great power repre-

sentatives or small state spokesmen.

Nevertheless, it can be maintained that the development o
contemporary international organization represents a groping to-
ward the realization of an imperfectly apprehended conception
of a global interest. To postulate this conception is to approach
the area of what may best be called the metaphysics of politics.
No one, from Rousseau to A. D. Lindsay, has been able to dispe
the haze of mysticism from the idea of the "general will, an
yet no hardheaded realist can deny that a meaningful notl °" °
community interest sometimes emerges from a society of selhs
men and competing interest groups. For instance, American so
ciety is divided in a thousand ways, but in the final analysis there
is a phenomenon of unity, of common concern, which defies
assured analysis but cannot realistically be dismissed as pious cant.

The concept of community interest is relatively underdeve
oped but not altogether missing from the international scene, n
part, it is served unwittingly and fortuitously by states whic
consciously aim only at promoting their particular interests, an
incidentally by states which promote it only because they ha\e
discovered that the global interest is identifiable with their own
national interests, viewed in enlightened fashion. Considere
this way, the concept of community interest is not a sublime ex
pression of man's moral capacity — but the accidental or se
interested promotion of the common good is typical of sue i
well-developed national society as the United States, where cn
trepreneurs contribute to the nation in seeking profit, minority
groups improve the health of the body politic by seeking status
for themselves, and politicians serve the national interest m
quest for partisan advantage and electoral victories.

CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION

in terms of the general needs of humanity rather than the par-
ticular interests of nations.

Finally, there are some indications that the General Assembly
is capable of functioning as the institutional embodiment of con-
cern for the healthy development of the United Nations system.
True, it is a collection of national-minded statesmen, as its action
normally demonstrates; but on occasion, it acts as if it were an
entity charged svith responsibility for promoting the long-range
interests of the world community. This is perhaps so inexplicable
as to be unbelievable, but it is no more m>slerious than the
phenomenon of a collection of party politicians, sectional ists, and
interest group representatives who constitute a Congress sv ue i
sometimes gives expression to the national interests o tic me
States. ... -i

The constitutional development ot the United Nations, earned
out through and expressed in the process ot Charter interpreta-
tion. is the product o! a complex network of factors: the leffi
stipulations of the Charter, the clash ot national interests, tic
shifting of political alignments, the rise of institutional jealo i .
and the impact of emergent conceptions o[ the global interest
What the United Nations has become up to lb's point is not
a legal technician might have deduced Iron, the Charter or .ha
a diplomat might have constructed for the promot.ou of nano al
interests, or what an internationalist might Ime eugne
realization of the ideal of world order; it is something of all these
things.

Tli c Changing Hole cf the General Assembly

The lint great area of constitutional comroveny and clinnge
in the United Nation, is the sphere of competence otlheGe,
ecal Assembly. The transformation ol the relations ps
this and other mgan. of the global institutional system » a one
study in the operation ol the entire complex ol factor, alrra J

‘‘Tlcn'ing concept of the Ss„ Francisco ““"'^‘Vitr'c^mcih
“separation ot poiicn" ol the Assembly and the Scco T
Tlie league closenant had tailed to establish a du in tec.
functional differentiation beltveen the major otg

170

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

tions behind the opinions of the Court, the clear retort is that
the World Court is decidedly less partisan than was John Mar-
shall’s Supreme Court of the United States.

The first Secretary-General of the United Nations, Trygve Lie,
regarded himself in that capacity as a "spokesman for a world
interest overriding any national interests in the councils of the
nations.” 14 In playing that role, lie advised the Security Council
that it had implied powers to accept governing responsibilities
in the Free Territory of Trieste and to assume the task of imple-
menting the Palestine partition scheme ; 18 he sponsored the posi-
tion that the United Nations was competent to press claims under
international law against states, which won the approval of the
World Court; he tried vainly to secure a settlement of the Chinese
representation issue which would promote the approach to effec-
tive universality by the world organization; he gave vigorous sup-
port to the decision that the United Nations should act against
aggression in Korea; he proposed, with meager success, that an
international guard force be established; he supported the ex-
pansion of the security functions of the General Assembly to com-
pensate for the ineffectuality of the Security Council; and he
formulated a broad program for the long-term strengthening of
the United Nations system . 14

These various initiatives are subject to legitimate criticism, but
they are clearly the product of a man whose primary concern was
the development of the United Nations to meet the needs of the
world community, rather than to serve as the instrument of a
particular state or bloc. Lie has been accused by his critics of
having served particular rather than general interests, but what
American President has escaped that fate? As Secretary-General,
he was doubtless not a pure internationalist, but for that matter
Lincoln was always something of a Republican, Roosevelt some-
thing of a Democrat, Churchill something of a Tory, and De
Gaulle something of a De Gaullist. Devotion to the international
interest is still a rare phenomenon and a relative one, but so is
devotion to the national interest. International organization is
slowly acquiring its vital minority of men who view its evolution

»U«. op. at., p. 12.

^ C . h 7* brf * Th * Secretary Cmnal of the Vnited Natio
.V" Vlrrt 1952) . pp. 96.97.

On ihc« poinu. tec Lie. op at , pauim.

(Cam-

173

CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION

ference when he reported that the demand of the great powers
for making a “sharp distinction” between the functions of the
two organs had prevailed, citing the rejection by “large major-
ities” of amendments “which attempted to place a share of the
ultimate responsibility for peace and security on the General As-
sembly," and that the Conference had approved the “separation
of powers" as “the basic concept of the Organization.' 19 He sum-
marized the situation in these terms:

Perhaps the basic difference between the constitutional arrange-
ment of the United Nations and that ol the League of Nations, is
that instead of the Assembly and the Council having tdent.cal
functions, as was the case under the League, the General Assembly
and the Security Council will each have different functions assigned
to it. The General Assembly is primarily a body for deliberation
and recommendation, while the Security Conncl ts g.ven powers
to act in the maintenance oi international peace and security
whenever it deems necessary . 20

In the same vein, the chairman of the responsible committee at
San Francisco asserted:

The strength of the future world Organization rests ou petlcct
equilibrium between the (unctions oi the Assembly and Lose of
the Security Council. Neither of these two bodies ton hi try ^
dominate the other nor trespass on the other s pecu P
activities and responsibilities. . - - The Assem y V . : , on
representative body of the world, is to establish the pnnapta on
which world peace and the ideal of solidarity must res , .

other hand, the Security Council is to act in actzmlanc * '
principle, and with the speed necessary to preven 1 he

breach of international peace and secumy. In other ^
former is a creative body and the latter an organ of action.

In the actual operation of the United Nations the breaUnS
down of this concept oi specialization has assumed
of a major const", ttionai revolution. Gradually r and . ncrea ,ngl£
the Genera. Assembly ha. intruded into the
-peculiar sphere." It began by becoming a more frequcntl, used

"Stetlinjuj Report, pp 60. 77. 78, 81, 94.

on Z..o,.,.«,.r zw— t^: S ""“ d

172

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

signed to the Assembly and the Council an identical competence
to deal “with any matter within the sphere of action of the
League or affecting the peace of the world.” 17 The framers of
the Covenant had placed primary emphasis upon the role of the
Council. Adding the Assembly almost as an afterthought to then
structural scheme, they had expected it to meet infrequently, and
consequently had not seen fit to endow it with a considerable
sphere of action all its own. The Covenant had provided for con-
current action by the two major organs on a number of matters
and for submission of certain issues alternatively to the Council
or Assembly, but it had neglected the principle of a division of
labor.

In deliberate contrast, the great powers set out to create a post-
World War II organization which would be characterized by a
high degree of internal specialization. The Dumbarton Oaks Pro-
posals reflected a clear intent to assign primary responsibility for
problems of high politics and security to the Security Council,
and to make the General Assembly the supervisor of organiza-
tional housekeeping arrangements and activities in economic and
social fields.

At San Francisco, limited success attended the vigorous efforts
of a number of states, particularly small ones, to expand the po-
tential significance of the General Assembly as a political organ.
Articles 10-15 and 35 of the Charter, as finally adopted, gave the
Assembly a very respectable role in the management of the po-
litical activities of the projected organization. Nevertheless, the
completed Charter contained a definite assignment of “primary
responsibility for the maintenance of peace and security” to the
Security Council, which was designated as the authoritative agent
of all member states for this purpose, and gave it clear priority
in the handling of political matters and exclusive capacity to de-
cide on action to safeguard the peace in critical situations. 1 *

The alterations in the organizational plan which were made at
San Francisco certainly blurred the line of functional division
between the General Assembly and the Security Council, but
they did not obliterate it. The American Secretary of State, Stet-
tinius, expressed a legitimate view of the results of the Con-

« W a 1 !!'!' S ;, pl , ,agrlph y and Article
Vc Article! II. 12. 24, 23. and J9 54.

paragraph 4.

175

CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION

American policy in the Security Council, whereupon the United
States insisted upon transferring political and security ft'"® 0 " 5
to the maioritarian Assembly, in which the Soviet Union had only
the status of leader of a pitifully ineffectual minority bloc. In
these terms, it is natural that such moves as the creation of the
Interim Committee and the adoption of the Uniting for Peace
Plan should have been American initiatives, and that the Soviet
Union should have denounced both of them as unconstitutional.

There is no doubt that the Uniting for Peace Plan, in par-
ticular, represents a violation of the spirit of the procedural agree-
ment reached at San Francisco. It provides, among other things,
that the General Assembly, meeting in emergency session if neces-
sary, may intervene in a critical situation where Security Council
action has heen blocked by the veto, make a finding of aggressio ,
and recommend the launching of collective measures by member
states for maintaining or restoring the peace, n t is sc 1 ,

Assembly respects the Charier t ^ST^!i“ih°io Jurisdictional

F Tht?ha, been much ill-advised effort to justify

“Ache, on Plan" by discovering that the formative Conferen^e of

1945 really intended to bestow upon the As! f mb J . f th

capacity to play this role. In arguing for the ad°P

plan, John Foster Dulles recounted the story of th

Article 10 in the Charter, and assened: "The P°«” “^7™.

eral Assembly we now invoke were won that d y

d Thelmerican "reserve powers" potion .«■** -gained
only by ignoring virtually all of the oflieia men imme( iiately
on the Charter which had been produced

after the San Francisco Conference, inc lit - . . mar y e d

phasis upon the doctrine of "separation o P°'""’ stateme nt in
be Report of Secretary of ‘'“men.

an official legislative report of 1945 . termination that a

measures was “conditional upon a prior determ

_ . » 0 £ the General

-timing to Kto- (to.™® »■* i'smnaXk Ocobw !J. »* P-

Assembly on October 9, 1950), Department oj Mare *

174

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

alternative forum for the consideration of political disputes: it
acquired "the character of an organ of second recourse, an organ
of appeal with relation to the Security Council”; 22 in passing the
Uniting for Peace Resolution on November 3, 1950, 23 it assumed
the power to reverse the Security Council by calling for enforce-
ment action in situations where that body, acting under its
Charter-prescribed rule of great power unanimity, has decided
negatively on proposals for such action; it has, in fact, virtually
replaced the Council as the agency bearing primary political re-
sponsibility within die United Nations.

This trend can be documented by reference to the Assembly's
taking over the Spanish and Greek questions from the Council
in 1946 and 1947, its establishment in 1947 of the Interim Com-
mittee to provide continuous Assembly machinery for dealing
with political disputes, its significant participation in the Pales-
tine case in 1947 and afterwards, its adoption of a comprehensive
plan for serving as a security agency in 1950, and its replacement
of the Security Council as the responsible United Nations body in
the management of the Korean action.

The trend can be expressed in quantitative terms by citing the
fact that the Security Council considered eight political issues and
the Assembly only two in the first half of 1946, whereas the bal-
ance had shifted to eighteen for the Assembly and five for the
Council in the twelve-months period ending June 30, 1953. 24 The
relative decline of the Security Council is also indicated by the
decreasing frequency of its meetings, which fell from a maximum
of 180 during the period from July 16, 1947, to July 15, 1918, to
the extraordinarily low number of 26 between the corresponding
dates in 1952-I953. 2 *

t ^ ** | J cm pting to treat this development as a phenomenon of
the cold war. The element of Soviet-American conflict has been
an obvious determinant; the USSR used its veto power to defeat

N<*. S * ,,,emwu of D!, P u, a" International Conciliation,

tat, *ec Charter Iteviev

Th* l Rn-irv ,nd ,he RevU!on ot

no.T.X£^7»« Setu,i, y Couneil ' Stin Sl f J

Relation,, gj r< j Congitu, 2nd Sewlo^p^g Q ’ arter ' Sfnl,e Committee on ForHjrt

177

CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION

position. For several years, American officials had been arguing
that the blocking of Security Council action by the veto did not
relieve the members of the United Nations of the obligation
which they had assumed, upon signing the Charter, to collaborate
in the maintenance of peace and the protection of victims of ag-
gression.* 1 The Teal strength of the anti-Soviet legal position in-
hered in the concept that the San Francisco decision to promote
collective security was more fundamental than the San Francisco
agreement to adopt certain mechanisms and techniques, and that
a violation of Charter procedures was preferable to a renuncia-
tion of the substantive purposes of the Charter. In contrast, the
USSR attached legal sanctity to the means prescribed in the
Charter, and assigned lesser legal status to the ends.

This point makes it clear that the general policy of shifting
political functions to the General Assembly is something more
than an expression of America’s capacity to transform t e mte
Nations into a more serviceable instrument oi its cold war poli-
cies. Not the United States alone, but the overwhelming majority
of members of the organiration have engineered the change, ami
a major motivating factor has been the conviction t at sue
drastic revision of the original constitutional relationships was
essential to the development of an institutional system capa o
meeting the world’s basic needs. A slight case of unconsti u 1
ality is no ground for pessimism if it is a symptom of a creative
urge to make adequate provision for the requirements of world
order. . 0

Neither the American desire to nullify the Soviet veto nor the
disinterested devotion of states to the ideal of soun cons 1

development provides a full explanation

of the Assembly’s en-

croachment upon the sphere of the Security Council. At least two
other factors have contributed to the process.

One of these is the persistent assertiveness of the *“ a11 stat “
which constitute the great bulk of the 0

United Nations. They would clearly have had the desire,

' * of the General Assembly vis

the ability, to enhance the position

See, for instance, James F. Byrnes, s f* a V n f f jvX ^Dep” 1 ^ 11

7\ nT , on. , 10 . and Membership in the Unitea • r .„

of State Publication 3*19 (Washington: Government V
17. 18.

176

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

threat to the peace exists, or that a breach of the peace or act of
aggression has occurred. This determination is for the Security
Council to make. No other organ of the United Nations is com-
petent to make it." 21 Moreover, the record is clear that the Con-
ference declined to adopt proposed amendments which would
have authorized the Assembly to play the role which it assumed
in 1950,” and that the Iranian spokesman had been correct in
asserting that neither the Assembly nor the Security Council was
designed to serve as “a court of appeal for the other." 28

The powers at San Francisco deliberately agreed to an arrange-
ment whereby an organ which could act only with the unanimous
consent of the Big Five was competent to initiate coercive action
on behalf of the organization; by clear implication, they agreed
that the organization should not attempt to act in the absence of
that unanimity. It was that agreement which the majority of the
General Assembly, led by the United States, revoked in 1950 over
the protests of the Soviet bloc.

In 1954, Mr. Dulles, as Secretary of State, referred to "the
Uniting for Peace Resolution which gave the Assembly a veto-
less authority in security matters." 19 In so doing, he virtually
admitted that the Assembly had assumed new powers rather than
drawn on reserve powers provided in the Charter, although he did
not attempt to explain the constitutional principle which alleg-
edly permits an agency to arrogate new powers to itself.

On the other hand, the case for the Acheson Plan included one
very sound argument which might better have been permitted
to serve as the fundamental basis of the decision. This was the
point that Soviet behavior was in violation of the spirit of the
purposive agreement reached at San Francisco, and that the re-
vision of the terms of reference of the General Assembly was in

. accord with the substantive principles and purposes enun-
ciated in the Charter.

JThe United States had carefully prepared the ground for this

FoTei S» Relations on the United Set ion*
-W Document, , p. 61.

Vat, on, Contcmcl ^ ) ‘ Ubmlllf ’ 1 b T Iran tad the Philippine!, The United
ISO International Organization: Selected Documents, pp MB.

•Mu/, p 711.

“Charter nruieu Ilea

"ing. Pan I. p . g , uJiCT

CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION 1

the Security Council to secure the implementation of that deci-
sion . 84

It would seem that the leading states have discovered that the
negative capacity to block Security Council action is not so val-
uable as the positive capacity to win friends and influence people
in the General Assembly . 85 The rise of great power enthusiasm
for the Assembly reflects a change in the conception of the po-
litical mission of the United Nations. So long as the Big Five
entertained the notion of jointly managing the world’s political
business, they found the Security Council chamber a cozy con-
sultation room for the top directorate. When they shifted to the
concept of creating competitive alliances, the very coziness o ia
chamber became a drawback, and they came to appreciate t le su
perior political and ideological acoustic! ot the Aisembly hall.
Giving up negotiation among themselves tor drumming up a
following among the smaller states, the great powers have marched
into the Assembly. , , . . .

The General Assembly has not only encroached upon the juris-
dictional preserve of the Security Council, but it as a so
to revoke the Charter-prescribed delegation of specialized func-
tions to the Trusteeship and Economic and Social Council*. Th
is particularly true of the Trusteeship Counci , an
for this shift of constitutional relationships are ana og
discussed in connection with the displacement o e

T™ Charter formally assigns the management of the Trustee-
ship System to the General Assembly, but it also designates t e
Trusteeship Council as the operating arm of the Assem y
that purpose. 8 ® Despite the obvious intention o 1 ron( i uct
cisco Conference that the Trusteeship
its business more or less autonomously, within the f
its ultimate responsibility to the Assembly there ha. b«„ »
steady trend toward the transfer of trustees!,, p quest, ons to

P Xh"o is clearly an expression oi the point, of tenth
colonialism. Just a, the Soviet veto power tnsp.res the Un ted

- s* _ o. ow a- *■- ■

p 68

“Cf Haviland, loc at.

"See Articles 85-91.

SWORDS INTO plows:

iRES

a vis the Security Council even if the cold war had not developed;
indeed, the harmonious comradeship of the Big Five might have
made them even more desperately eager to elevate the Assembly.
That body is the residual symbol of their cherished equality, and
the primary vehicle available for the exertion of their influence
upon world affairs. They got less than they wanted in their San
Francisco campaign to establish the predominance of the General
Assembly, and they left the Conference with the firm resolve to
exploit every opportunity to advance the cause of “the democratic
core of the Organization," which they hopefully regarded as “the
great focal point from which all other United Nations bodies
draw their source and to which they must all look for ultimate
guidance and support." **

We may take it as a permanent feature of the politics of inter-
national organization that the small states will press for the con-
centration of powers in the agency where their inferiority to the
great powers is least recognized; this was true of the League, in
which the Assembly was able to gain steadily increasing promi-
nence largely because the nonmembership of great powers weak-
ened the competitive vigor of the Council; it is true of the
United Nations, in which the General Assembly profits from the
fact that the conflict of great powers minimizes the institutional
self-assertiveness and efficiency of the Security Council.

Finally, the great powers as a group, and not just the United
States as an anti-Soviet leader, have advanced the cause of the
General Assembly. The Soviet Union has objected to the rise of
the Assembly only to the extent that that trend has represented
an American sponsored movement to erase the effects of the Soviet
veto power, and it has itself contributed to the development of
the Assembly s political competence by urging that body to act on
a number of important political issues.” The Uniting for Peace
Plan raised the Soviet Union’s constitutional hackles, but the
USSR has not ordinarily shown such scrupulousness. In 1954, it
took an extremely broad view of the Assembly’s competence when
it proposed that that body should declare, apparently with bind-
ing force, the complete prohibition of nuclear weapons and direct

are from Herbert V. Evatt, The Task of Nations (New York:
Due!l. Sloan and Pearce, 1949) , p. 12.

v "V“* . Hlvi!j nd. Jr- The Political Role of the General Assembly (New
• ora. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 1951), p. 169.

181

CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION

tion which it championed successfully during the formative pe-
riod of the United Nations system, this is not primarily the result
of a growing conviction that the principle of centralization will
serve the world community better. Rather, it is the result of a
growing irritation because the autonomous agencies will not sur-
render with alacrity to the American demand to determine which
Americans they may employ, and because they persist in irritating
hyperconservative American nationalists. Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.,
the principal American spokesman in the United Nations, ma e
this dear when he followed up Secretary Dulles’ remarks with a
statement in which he plumped for a centralization which would
enable the United States to exercise more effective influence over

the agencies.”

In general terms, the Assembly has come to be the focal point
of the entire United Nations system. The developmental Process
has made it a court of appeal against the decisions, particularly
the negative decisions, of virtually all the other organs. It is fre-
quently treated as a substitute for the other organs by states which
anticipate a more favorable response to their demands m tl
Assembly than in the Councils having limited representatmn of
die United Nations membership. Additionally, die *

central position in the administrative system of the organization
-typified by its electoral, budgetary, anil supervisory F°'' c
makes it the institutional hub of the United * ations. i
ited powers as the United Nations has to supers ue at <
die essentially autonomous Specializes! Agencies c '”
ma.cly upon the General Assembly. In the first decade of the
evolution of constitutional relationships within t ie 1 ' .

don, system, the CenenI Assembly has become the unmaled
principal organ.

Domestic Jurisdiction and International Competence

An ™ more cti.ieal arc, ot cont.i.u.ional And

development tlian that portaimn; to irUtKindtipt
mjant o[ the United Nation! totem n the atea o J
ptohlemt ,n,„l„n S the n o, Id ettpanitat.™. on j >c one I .
the tnemhee tlatet. on the other hand. In the l®

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

States to move from the Security Council to the Assembly, the
prescribed balance of voting power between administering and
nonadministering states in the Trusteeship Council inspires the
anticolonial forces to shift from that body to the Assembly. Just
as the great powers have learned to use the rostrum of the Assem-
bly to build support for their competing cold war blocs, the anti-
colonial powers have learned to use that forum to mobilize sup-
port for their cause.

There is some reason to believe that the General Assembly may
eventually achieve a hegemonic position in relation to the Spe-
cialized Agencies which are independently associated with the
United Nations. In accordance with the Charter, the Assembly
exercises, directly and through the Economic and Social Council,
the centralizing and coordinating functions to which those agen-
cies have agreed.* 7 The formal looseness of this control system is
already somewhat offset by the Assembly’s ultimate managerial
power over the Expanded Technical Assistance Program, which
it launched in 1949, and upon which a number of the Specialized
Agencies depend for a very substantial proportion of their op-
erating funds. Moreover, it may be significant for the future of
the system that the American Secretary of State, Mr. Dulles,
referred to the Specialized Agencies, in 1954, in these terms:

There is a rather curious, and I think inadequate control over
these bodies, and I think they are perhaps not sufficiently integrated
into the controls, budgetary and otherwise, which could be estab-
lished by the United Nations itself. I believe that whole galaxy of
satellites which revolves around the United Nations deserves some
consideration. . . , sa

This suggestion can hardly indicate anything other than a dispo-
sition to strengthen the control of the General Assembly over
those agencies.

As in all other cases, this adumbration of a proposal to expand
the competence of the General Assembly reflects a calculation of
the relative difficulties of making a national point of view prevail
in the Assembly and elsewhere. If the United States is on the
verge of renouncing the philosophy of institutional decentraliza-

,5 ' 17 fP lra 8 ra P h 3). and 57 72.

Charter Hearing, p art I, p. 27.

CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION lL!j

pared the world tor the intensely political battle over the question
of domestic jurisdiction which was to arise in the United Nations.

The San Francisco Conference, in designing an organizational
system with a much broader functional range than that of the
League, formulated a domestic jurisdiction clause with a corre-
spondingly greater range of application. Article 2, paragraph 7,
of the Charter provides that:

Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the
United Nations to intervene in matters which arc essentially ■ ni hm
the domestic jurisdiction of any stale or shall require t le 1 em
to submit such matters to settlement under t e present i .
hut this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement
measures under Chapter VII.

It i, notable that this formula was deliberately made •'>PP’ i “ b,e
to die entire body of United Nations operations under the Cl
ter except those pertaining to enforcement of the peace. Tin
point was emphasized, on the insistence of t ic ni et .

i statement for the record .ha. die con.mtt.ee rcspot.uble for
drafting tite chapter on international economic a f . m

operation was agreed that "nothing contain in P ’

be construed as giving authority ro the Organization ,o . enene
in the domestic affairs of member sra.es • " Moreover, he Con
ference deliberately refrained from ind.cat.ns where he com
perence ,o decide on disputed jurisdictional t®" ' 11
lodged, and from citing in.etua.ional law as the relevant standard

° ! Utv^m n so dispassionate a, to be not of this w-ould^ave

a hard time deciding individually or adeems c ° . formu ] a
abstract meaning or practical application o t ic :„ r ; s diction
for the delimitation of domestic and international umd'^om
From one point of view, the restricnon -
means almost nothing. Ratification o force to

practically every conceivable snbject-fmm • be ne of force .
.he riv.l rights ot citirent. from tcmtonal *£££.
agenicnt of the national economy into i .. . lc j t t* in-
to that there ,s precious A* domestic

fringed upon The same conclusion can JL-*--

- r/,c l confer ~ O t

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

182

the division of power between the Federal Government and the
states produces a persistent problem of "states’ Tights"; in the
United Nations, the coexistence of international organization and
national states produces an analogous problem of "domestic juris-
diction.”

To the calm observer, the problem of domestic jurisdiction
looked fairly simple at the time of the formulation of the League
Covenant. In the light of settled legal principles, it was clear that
the League should have only such competence as was delegated
to it, and that the sovereignty of the state, not the authority of
the organization, should receive the benefit of any doubt that
might arise. Nevertheless, American Senators were far from calm
observers, and the framers of the Covenant sought to allay their
morbid fears of a world government which would meddle in sucli
American affairs as tariff and immigration policy 40 by inserting in
the article regarding peaceful settlement of disputes the proviso
that:

If the dispute between the parties is claimed by one of them, and
is found by the Council, to arise out of a matter which by inter-
national law is solely within the domestic jurisdiction of that
party, the Council shall so report, and shall make no recommenda-
tion as to its settlement. 41

The experience of the League in applying this formula pro-
vided no great excitement. When the allegation was made that
the Council had no business intruding in a particular dispute, the
Council customarily treated it as a legal question, and relied heav-
ily upon the advice of international jurists. This procedure
brought about the formulation of a constitutional principle which
is of major importance for the long-term development of inter-
national organization: the doctrine, stated by the Permanent
Court of International Justice in its Advisory Opinion on Na-
tionality Decrees Issued in Tunis and Morocco (1923), that ac-
ceptance by a state of treaty obligations relating to a given sub-
ject has the effect of removing that subject from the purely
domestic domain. 42 Nothing in the experience of the League pre-

"Cf Henry Cabot Lodge. The Senate

the League of Nationt {New York:

185

CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION

dertakes to deal. This trend was foreshadowed by the compre-
hensiveness of the functional range of the original constitutional
documents of the United Nations. Compared to the Charter, the
League Covenant -was a narrowly political document. Govern-
ments do not create an organization with an Economic and Social
Council if they wish to exclude international consideration of
economic and social problems; they do not ratify a Charter con-
taining a Declaration Regarding Non-Self-Governing Territories
if they are convinced that colonial policy is purely a domestic
concern of imperial powers; they do not commit themselves to a
collaborative effort to promote the universal enjoyment o u
man rights if they adhere to the belief that every state as t
sovereign right to treat its citizens as arbitrarily as it pleases. Hav-
mg done the* thing., the member, ot the United N.t.om had
committed themselves to a broad conception of the proper bus -
ness of international organization from the very start.

The development of the trend has been a political process in
more than one sense. In the first place, jurisdictional quest.ons
have been disposed of by the political organs o t e sy >
out customary reference to the World Court or
visory agencies. In the second place, the arncula.ed cr
judgment has been political in the best sense o svste m

the sense that concern has been expressed for ere g
of international organisation capable of realmng g

poses formulated a. San Francisco. This sort of pol.
looks to the future to find opportunities foretea
stands in contrast to the kind of legalism rv ic ]ate( p

to find permission for whatever activities might be com ‘ P 1 “

Finally, P , he motivating forces involved in the proc s have been
political in the lower sense-in the sense that eons de anom o
national self-interest have played a decisive part, and that nations,
or bloc partisanship, in the manner of all to

duced expediential shifting from one constitution p

^general terms, the result ot this

various organs of the United Nations av presented

tence to deal with virtually any matter -tab , might* pr= ^
to their attention. They have sometimes lie within

ion with matters which have been strongly alleged

184

SWORDS INTO PLOWS!

RFS

"intervention” strictly, and arguing that Article 2, paragraph 7,
permits United Nations criticism, advice, and recommendation on
matters which are within domestic jurisdiction, and that the
concluding exceptional clause permits genuine intervention —
coercive interference — in any matter whatever which the organ-
ization deems related to the problem of international peace.

From another point of view, the domestic jurisdiction clause
vitiates almost the whole Charter. If both "intervention" and
“domestic jurisdiction" arc broadly defined, to mean that inter-
national investigation, discussion, and recommendation are pro-
scribed in relation to the domestic affairs and internal problems
of states, it would appear that there is little activity in which the
United Nations can constitutionally engage.

Either of these extreme interpretations reduces some part of the
Charter to meaninglessness. The former makes the domestic juris-
diction clause an abortive attempt to limit the competence of the
organization, the latter makes virtually the entire Charter, ex-
cluding Article 2, paragraph 7, a waste of words. 44

In truth, the effort to discover the precise legal meaning of the
jurisdictional text is a hopeless enterprise, since it was

a formula which left everyone free to place his own interpretation
upon the article in the future in the hope that he would make it
prevail. Far from representing a definite concept which would be a
clear guide for future action and which would resolve conflicts in
this very delicate field of international action, the adoption of
article 2 (7) merely postponed the division of opinion which would
be certain to arise in the future.”

Such an enterprise is also essentially irrelevant, because the
question of the constitutional relationship between the world
organization and its component states has been treated as pre-
eminently a political matter.

In analyzing the operating experience of the United Nations,
we can first of all discern a definite trend toward the enlargement
o the subject matter with which international organization un-

*»«■"» of Stability and Progress in International Rela-
University of California Press, 1954). p. 32.

„ b ? Lawren « Preuss, July 12, 1946, Compulsory Jurisdiction oj the
onTr,r. ” a l ,° U ' 1 ol ]usUce ’ Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee
< UmUd Stales Scna,t - 19th Congress, 2nd Session (Washing-

ton Government Pruning Office, 1946). p. 82.

CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION

There are matters, however, which, though formally comprised
in the domestic jurisdiction of a given State, border upon external
political relations, or even encroach directly upon external political
relations, threatening the peace and security of the peoples. Such
matters cannot be left to be settled by the State itself, notwith-
standing the principle of sovereignty .® 0
This doctrine has served repeatedly as the basis of action by the
political organs of the United Nations.

The upshot of all this is a situation described approvingly by
Charles Malik of Lebanon:

Thus, any Member of the United Nations can bring before the
Assembly any question falling within Ihe scope of the Charter and
if he can muster the necessary votes, he will have that question both
included in the agenda and discussed. Whether "dike , ,

such is the structure of the United Nation, that, tf there ts suffi-
ciently strong leeltng about any matter within the scope
Charter — and this scope, a, we all know. ,s pract.cally “6

-then no legalistic protestations can possibly prevent tt. full tits
cussion by the Assembly. 51

Clyde Eagleton has said the same thing in terms of dtsapproba-

tion:

United Nation, organ, have ridden roughshod over the domestic,
questions clause of the Charter. In practice, *

majority, that obstacle may now be regarded as removed »n organ
of the United Nations may now do whatever tt has the votes

This confrontation of Malik with Eagleton “ Wio,^ of
another trend which we must note: the constttu to p

of the United Nations has produced not °nly a trend toward the
enlargement of international jurisdiction at . ver

mesne jurisdiction, but also a trend toward a bitter
the question of the jurisdictional balance between
orgai, ration and national states. These two trends g
hand, as American experience in the development of
tralization demonstrates. It is open to qnest.on whether the mo

■SS^tSL, Bulletin, Octet,,. B. .»>• j” j 195! , p

“ "Excesses of Self-Determination, Foreign Afjo > J Y

186

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

the domestic jurisdiction of member states, but they have not
conceded the right of a state unilaterally to impose a restrictive
definition of international jurisdiction. They have exploited to
the full the World Court's doctrine of the treaty-obligation test
of jurisdictional competence, and they have gone far toward de-
veloping a new constitutional principle which has not as yet been
sanctified by the imprimatur of a court: the concept that the
technical validity of a claim of domestic jurisdiction cannot pre-
vent the United Nations from concerning itself with a case which
it judges to bear significantly upon the preservation of world
peace and the realization of the basic purposes enshrined in the
Charter.

This principle was adumbrated at San Francisco in a subcom-
mittee report which acknowledged that the problem of human
rights was primarily a domestic matter, but asserted that if the
fundamental freedoms of individuals “were grievously outraged
so as to create conditions which threaten peace or to obstruct the
application of provisions of the Charter, then they cease to be
the sole concern of each state." «• It has been invoked by both
the United States and the Soviet Union. In discussing the Indo-
nesian case, the American spokesman told the Security Council
that "when there is shooting and men are killed the Council has
full right to take the case in its hands," 4T and a United States
representative declared to the General Assembly in 1950 that the
Formosa issue "was not one of purely domestic jurisdiction since
the case could lead to differences among nations, and even war." 41
In similar vein, the Soviet Union argued in 1946 that the Secu-
rity Council could properly intervene in Spain, on the ground
that internal conditions in that country constituted “a threat to
international peace and security," « and its Ukrainian spokesman
justified the demand for action concerning the maintenance of
British troops in Indonesia in these terms:

!J Conference on International Organization: Selected Documen

“ United Natur
p <83

turisdirtin U " R ‘ olirl . “The International Court of Justice and Domestic

“RpJ:, 0 ' Organization, February 1954, p 41.

1950 P ' lpetdl b y Ambassador Warren Austin. New York Times, October 8,

L.W end H.m.n Right, (London.

CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION

189

busily engaged in attempting to achieve the liquidation of the
Western liberal heritage in its territory. The United States, ill
at ease in the role of obstructing anticolonial campaigns but with
its European alliances to think about, and profoundly uncom-
fortable in the role of giving aid and comfort to the aggressive
racialism of South Africa but with its as-yet-imperfect racial situa-
tion to worry about, has shifted nervously; finally, in 1953, it
permitted itself the observation that something probably ought
to be done about “the tendency of the General Assembly to plat*
on its agenda subjects die international character of which is

doubtful.” 54 ,

This declaration, however mildly expressed, oE American in-
tention to support the campaign against the undisciplined Jims-
dictional expansion of the United Nations is certain proo , i an
were needed, that the battle is far from over. The internation
battle over domestic jurisdiction bids fair to be ai uwimnent •
feature of the constitutional history of the Unite all ?? s
domestic battle over states' rights lias been m American
The question of domestic jurisdiction has given ; rise to an n
tcrnal political conflict in the United States w ic i a

related to the international struggle just desen e . should

debate concerning the extent to which the United States should
submit to the intrusions of international orgamza • ^

dition of adherence to a doctrinaire conception o ous

ereignty is well established in this country, an i anxiety

supporters have long been characterized Y f ” e militated

a„ P d P a suspiciousness oi their m as."

against their taking an accurate look ^ has inted „„t,
cons, sternly logical position. As D. F. o( a res5Ivatio „

the Senate voted overwhelmingly m 19- . T j n : te d

to the League Covenant which stated the ,men.^ of the U",. d
States to decide tor itself what matters lay

jurisdiction and specified seven such chil-

coastwise traffic, the tariff, commerce, , yet, the

dren, and traffic in opium and other angero o
United States had already ratified treaties ^^ of purely
subjects, thereby admitting that they were

-See the s „ t * Henry Ca** ^ !«. Charter

Review Documents, o. 283.

sword:

N TO FLOWCHARTS

significant fact in United Nations history is tlie emergence of the
trend toward reducing the sphere of domestic jurisdiction or of
the trend toward increasing the political sensitivity of that issue,
just as it is doubtful whether American history should be de-
scribed as chiefly characterized by the gradual defeat of states’
rights or by the persistent struggle of the champions of states’
rights.

The political struggle over the domestic jurisdiction issue is a
confused one. in which we find the USSR alternately denouncing
international efforts to penetrate the sacred barrier of a state’s
sovereignty and joining gleefully in the effort to probe into the
colonial affairs of Western European powers, India urging the
United Nations to make racial conditions in South Africa its own
business and defiantly asserting that it will tolerate no inter-
ference by the United Nations in its sovereign realm and no
attempt to tell its government "what we should do in India or
in any part of the Indian Union,” ” and the United States oscil-
lating in much the same manner. Like the doctrine of states’
rights, the principle of domestic jurisdiction is a concept which
no participant in the political process can resist invoking when
it serves his purposes or denouncing when it thwarts his purposes.

Nevertheless, the major battle has shaped up with reasonable
clarity in the United Nations. The principle that the organiza-
tion’s business is whatever it chooses to make its business has
become the chosen instrument of the rebellious, impatient, anti-
colonial, and self-consciously non-European bloc of states which
is keenly aware of its increasing capacity to dominate the deci-
sions of the General Assembly and determined to use that capacity
to strike down the last vestiges of the white man’s structure of
political and racial superiority. Thus challenged, the embattled
Bearers of the white man’s burden and protectors of the white
mans civilization have collaborated in the project of erecting
igger and better “no trespassing” signs. The colonial powers of
s ern Europe, busily engaged in attempting to achieve the con-
uctive iquidation of the colonial heritage, would prefer to rely
pon signs reading “Quiet — men thinking” or “Slow — men at
’ , u(: the ? have been exasperated to the point of accepting

wor mg preferred by the Union of South Africa, which is

I'.rt Tl 12, 1951.

191

CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION

province hitherto reserved to the states. It is an involved story
but it runs as follotvs: certain groups espouse the doctruK
states' rights, meaning usually that they sash to prevent federal
regulation of their economic activity or their treatment o
groes or other racial minorities; they note rath alarm the eo in-
stitutional possibility that the Federal Government, by maUng
treaties which place such matters within the .nternattotul do-
main, might be deemed to have moved those matters lor dome, to
purposes, Irom the state to the federal junsd.ct.onal mea, there
fore they seek to exclude the possibility of such ehan S « Accord
ing to .hi, analysis, which is amply supported b »
adduced hy the Brickcritcs.‘> the most vociferous Am PP

sition to the broadening of international juris ic 10 d .

by concern for protecting those interests winch are prot

“ TltaLn against the jurisdictional expansiveness of the
United Nations stems from such various sources a,
of internationalist, lest the orgt >»«"» | a b ^„„ „ hich it can-

too fast and succeed only in cxaccr S P A[im to out .
not solve, the nationalistic ^«***°£ i^U.Ic fear of
side criticism of domestic racial p ame nd the Con-

American conservatives that Waslungtonmigh. amend ^

stitution to its advantage by the "“jj onia , power! at the per-
moral indignation of statesmen r „ a „ij„g non-self-govern-

sistent stretching of their comm ” t on5 and while there

ing territories. This reaction is » , reversal of the trend

is little probability that it wt P Nations activities, it will
toward maximizing the scope o vj ns the jurisdictional

certainly maintain the trend towar Q f United Nations

problem one of the most controversial issues
constitutional development.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Eichelberger, Clark M-. UN-
1955.

pp 22. 60. 94-95. ««. P ass "

: The First Ten

Years, New York: Harper,

190

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

domestic concern, and in 1924 Congress approved the sending of
delegates to an Opium Conference sponsored by the League, with
instructions to express the view that international regulation of
the production of dangerous drugs was essential to the solution
of the evils of the international narcotics traffic. 66

This phenomenon is fairly typical of “sovereign tyism” in ac-
tion in the United States. The forces that have rallied around
the standard of the proposed Bricker Amendment have intimated
that the efforts of sovereign states to reach agreement on multi-
lateral treaties relating to such matters as the international con-
trol of atomic energy and an international standard of human
rights constituted illegal invasions of domestic jurisdiction by
the United Nations, 66 overlooking the obvious point that Article
2, paragraph 7, of the Charter undertakes to limit only the ac-
tivities of United Nations organs, not the negotiation of treaties
by member states. Intense aversion to the possibility of external
interference in whatever the United States may at any given time
consider its own national business is responsible for a campaign
of viewing with alarm which vastly exaggerates American vul-
nerability to the intrusive machinations of an imaginary coterie
o internationalists dedicated to a conspiracy against American
sovereignty.

Probing more deeply into the American political context, we
in that the reaction of conservative nationalists against the
growt of international jurisdiction is not simply parallel to the
reaction against the expanding functional competence of the Fed-
era ovemmem, but is intertwined with it. Campaigners for the

nc -er Amendment have had only one wary eye focused on the
orcigners who might stick their noses into American affairs if
our government is not debarred from exercising its power to con-
er increased competence upon international agencies; the other,
equa y suspicious, eye has been trained upon “Washington,”
w nc i might, in accordance with the constitutional doctrine pro-
nounce in the Missouri v, Holland case (1920), derive from in-
ternational commitments an additional power to intervene in the

d the League of Nations, I9IS 1920 (New

“ D „ F ' Fleming. The United Stale, a

" Treat, ', ' PP 42M2V

CommiUee* A S reem mts, Hearing, before a Subcommittee of the
(Waihineion- r»v. J ud ' c,a ’V. United Slate, Senate, tied Congress, 1st Session

CHAPTER

The Problem of the
International Secretariat

In a very significant sense, the identity of every organization
—be it a giant industrial corporation, a community welfare
agency, a labor union, a national government, or an international
organization — is lodged in its professional staff. Members, stock-
holders, or citizens may control the organization, but they cannot
be it; the staff is the organization.

This concept is nowhere more applicable than in the realm of
international organization. The secretariat of an international
agency has a peculiar importance, since it is normally the sole
tangible evidence, in human form, of the continuous existence of
the agency; in the case of the United Nations, governmental rep-
resentatives assemble and adjourn, leaving staff members in the
headquarters buildings to provide proof that the "United Na-
tions’* is something more than the expectation that the govern-
ments will meet again. Moreover, the secretariat of such an agency
is the only major organ which can properly be identified with
the whole rather than the parts. In international organization,
the member states are "organized," but the staff is the ‘'inter-
national" component.

Indeed, the invention of the international secretariat may be
described as the real beginning of international organization. In
institutional terms, nothing essentially new lias been added by

192 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

Goodrich, L. M., "The United Nations and Domestic Jurisdiction,
International Organization, February 1949, pp. 14-28.

Haviland, H. Field, Jr., The Political Role of the General Assembly,
New York: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1951.

How the United Nations Charter Has Developed, Staff Study No. 2,
Subcommittee on the United Nations Charter, Committee on
Foreign Relations, United States Senate, 83rd Congress, 2nd Ses
sion, Washington: Government Printing Office, 1954.

Lauterpacht, H., International Law and Human Rights, London:
Stevens, 1930, Chaps. 9-10.

Rolin, Henri, “The International Court of Justice and Domestic
Jurisdiction,” International Organization, February 1954, pp. 36-44.

195

PROBLEM OP THE INTERNATIONAL SECRETARIAT
mentalor has put it, the Secretary-General of the League had to
tt, to get his budget "voted by a Parliament where everyone
belonged to the Opposition." 1

There is a sense in which it is true that the complex of gov-
ernmental structures necessarily forms an integral whole, and one
of the persistent delusions of thinking about tnternat.onal organ-
isation is the notion that a single element of a governmental pat-
tern-for instance, a court or a police f°rce-ean funct.on effec-
tively in institutional isolation. Certainly, a crvtl servme wh.ch
is part of an international organisation must be expected to per-
form differently and to confront different problems than a l mil
service which is part of a fully elaborated governmen

Finally, the peculiar difficulties of the tntemational secretamt
are attributable to what we may call its interna 10 • ^

not only a bureaucracy without a governmen , .

reaucracy without a country! it lacks not only the appropriam
institutional envelopment, but also the «s«ttia qu | res

of a community of political allegiance. A tdreaucracy requires
more than administrative patterns and Integra achieve-

mental structure. A civil service is not just a techn cal achtes
meut but an outgrowth of a political

service is one of the rarest of human socia ac >' ’ !oli(1 a r ; t y

for societies lvhich have reached an un “’“ xhe United

in respect to fundamental values and p ; se bl above the
Nations secretariat can hardly be expe th e

political quality of the United Natrons; rf «“*'«' KCrttali at,
United Nations can hardly rise above t circularity of

that is only one of many instances of P

international problems. begins

The history of the international secretamt
with the creation of the League of t ' a,,0 ” . h c c, t ain public
Labor Organization after World War L A^ ^ Jr bu,
international unions had previously - o[ ,l ie idea

ream, these were of more importance as ant cipat^ ^ mKha .
of an international staff than as prece e jn.-mational La^° r
nisms of the League secretariat an 1 ' e . included a
Office. These two bodies, which at them maximum

A lVorArnr of the League of S*‘< on
*C lizard Fills. The Orfff.n. *

(London George Mien *nd L'n*in. IK**) • P 458 ’

194

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

the multilateralization and regularization of diplomacy until the
secretariat is introduced; this is the innovation that transforms a
series of conferences into an organization.

The problems presented by the need for an adequate secre-
tariat and by the opportunity for developing the potentialities of
this unique institutional invention are among the most basic
constitutional issues of international organization. The interna-
tional civil service is not only peculiarly important, but it also
poses difficulties of a special order.

In part, these derive from its very newness. There are no long-
established patterns of administrative structure and procedure in
the international field, or traditional values of international pub-
lic service. National precedents are available, and may be copied,
but they are inconsistent with each other and they may be, singly
or in combination, inconsistent with the requirements of inter-
national administration. Twentieth-century secretariats have had
to experiment in a new area, undertaking to decide what can and
should be borrowed from various national traditions and how to
combine the borrowings, and to develop new patterns and norms
specifically designed foT their unique tasks. The technical diffi-
culty of this job is enhanced by the diversity — linguistic, cultural,
political, and professional — of the human material involved. The
stubborn remnants of national administrative traditions, deeply
embedded in the preconceptions of secretariat members, make
the effective application of new international methods and stand-
ards, however rationally conceived, a formidable task.

. s P ec * a l difficulties of the international civil service also
derive in part from a kind of institutional loneliness. A national

ureaucracy fits comfortably into a governmental context; it has
us bosses and its supporters, those to whom it is responsible and
who are responsible for it, its institutional critics and defenders.
rhe I i n | cn ? a,ional . secretariat, by its very uniqueness as a govern-
ment-like institution on the international level, is condemned to
function in something uncomfortably like an institutional vac-
uum. Its departments are ministries without ministers. In organ-
izations like the League and the United Nations, the secretariat
may be conceived in the dual role of staff and executive, with
. ecretary-General serving as chief bureaucrat and prime min-
ister, ut this is an anomalous and delicate position; as one com-

PROBLEM OF THE INTERNATIONAL SFCRETARIAT U7

secretariats: “Both had proved that international administration
is feasible, that it can be efficient, and that the concept of inter-
national civil service is practical." 4 In contrast to the expectation
that the difficulties of creating a workable team out of diverse
multinational materials could not be surmounted, the League
secretariat was “from a technical standpoint at least, one of the
most efficient administrations the world has ever known. *

In general terms, the United Nations was built on the assump-
tion that the League's failure had not been conclusive; in respect
to the secretariat, it was built on the assumption that the League s
failure had not been comprehensive. Whereas some aspects o
the League experiment were continued by the formulators o t ie
new international system for want of something better, or m t ie
hope of building future success on past failure, this part at cast
of the institutional heritage was retained because it h»‘ prose
outstandingly successful. In the formulation of the Charter and
the early planning for its implementation, the basic P n ™P'”
the League secretariat system were adopted: the Unite 131
was to have a unitary staff, multinational in composition i hi
strictly international in character, headed by a Secretary-
through whom the secretariat was to be responsible so c )
organization and under whom it was to function inc epen cn >
tmion.il governments . 6 . . , ,

In keeping with the general concept of organizational decent^ t
iration, the autonomous Specialized Agencies o t ic neu >
were to create their own versions of the Internationa secre *
each responsible only to its own agency and a su jec
such coordination and administrative unification as .
agreed upon by the agencies which they served. i«
resulted in the creation of eleven major secretariats
«he United Nations itself and of the affiliated Specialized A.enaes
—where only two had existed in the League era. wit i ^

of personnel which exceeds ten thousand. In ax i to •
tforut agencies as NATO and the Orgamzation
States have developed flourishing staff organization .
creating the corps of international civil servants- ^

• TKr iHtfmMiumMl UtrrttrUl * ' "yr,

-VWvhln*,oo &n*X«* r rvVurmml tor T<*c*.

‘till p ttl

‘w CrtkU-. r. irvl 1 00 101 «t iNe CXsftrt

196

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

combined total of hardly more than a thousand persons, were the
trail-blazers of international administration.

The basic direction of the trail was established at once by Sir
Eric Drummond, the first Secretary-General of the League. His
decision to build a strictly international staff, composed of per-
sons from many nations serving as individual members of a uni-
tary intemattonal body rather than of contingents of national
representatives, was a bold and imaginative innovation which has
been generally acclaimed as "one of the most important events
in the history of international politics.” *

As to the manner of proceeding along the path Drummond and
Albert Thomas, the original Director of the International Labor
Office, developed such contrasting patterns of operation as to pre-
sent their descendants of the United Nations generation with a
clear awareness of the fundamental alternatives. Drummond, a
British civil servant by temperament and conviction as well as
experience, established the prototype of an efficient and unob-
trusive administrative direction, while Thomas, an irrepressible
veteran of French politics and labor activity, created the pattern
of articulate and dynamic leadership in matters of policy. The
categories which they established will dominate the concept of
secretary-generalship for generations to come.

The pioneer secretariats discovered and left a record of the
major pitfalls to be encountered along the path of international
administration, even though they did not manage to pave an
easy way to success. Their successors have the advantage of their
experience in grappling with the difficulties, and the consolation
—dubiously gratifying, perhaps, but the best available to builders
of international order — of knowing that the problems which beset
them have been encountered before.

Most significantly, the trail-blazing agencies demonstrated con-
clusively that the way was not impassable. The feasibility of an
international civil service had previously been not only ques-
tioned. but "confidently denied.” * Egon Ranshofen-Wcrtheimer
expressed the conclusions of virtually all serious students of inter-
national administration when he wrote of the two pioneering

Pwf*pTlt A " U,ory ot ,he l - ea F“ of Nation, I. 76. Cf. I4e, In the Cane of

* Witten, toe. tit.

199

PROBLEM OF THE INTERNATIONAL SECRETARIAT

the League secretariat remained from first to last predominantly
a collection of Europeans and therefore a relatively homogeneous
institution in important respects. Switzerland, as host country,
provided the bulk of lower-level employees; Britain and France
supplied the core of the professional staff, its standard languages,
and its administrative techniques. The differences between these
two linguistic and technical contributions were real, but in the
retrospection of the United Nations era they appear minor.

The United Nations began with a Charter provision which
formalized the operative principle evolved by the League that
“Due regard shall be paid to the importance of recruiting the
staff on as wide a geographical basis as possible, 8 and with a
de facto situation of excessive Americanization of the staff which
was primarily a consequence of the haste with which early re-
cruitment had to be carried out. Subsequent adjustments have
reduced the United States contingent to reasonable proportions,
and produced a pattern of geographical distribution which is
conceived as relatively stable. In this pattern, nationals ot the
United States and Western European countries occupy a very con
siderable percentage of staff positions, but the geographical range
has been broadened to take in persons from virtually all t
member states. "Underrepresented” as most peoples not o e
ern European nationality or ethnic background still are, m term
of their quantitative importance in world population gures,
have nevertheless produced secretariat members in sufficien -
bers to give the United Nations offices a much more heterogeneous
character than the League headquarters possesse . f 5
welding together men and women of different national e : ,
guages, and cultural traditions into an efficient a mi
team presents a much larger problem to the Unite a i

Aside frSr the difficulties ol operating a decidedly
tional staff organization, once it is formed, tie pro -

ceiling the principle of equitable geographical
recruits with that of “securing the higlseat standhnds of emoien Y
competence, and integrity" • is a formidable one. This dehcate
'ask was politically imposed upon the League Sect ry

'Article 101, paragraph S.

'ibid

198

SWORDS INTO PLOWS II ARFS

The Problem of Efficient Administration

The first major secretariat problem confronting the United
Nations, and, analogously, other contemporary international or-
ganizations, is that of basic bureaucratic efficiency. The United
Nations secretariat has at its disposal the administrative wisdom
painfully accumulated by its predecessors, but it also has a com-
bined list of unsolved old problems and difficult new ones.

Trygve Lie began his work on the basis of structural plans care-
fully elaborated by the Preparatory Commission of the United
Nations, whereas Sir Eric Drummond had had to start from a
scratch provided by himself, but, unlike the League, the United
Nations commenced its operations in such a flurry that its original
Secretary-General had to recruit and organize his staff with ex-
traordinary haste. As Lie has reported, his task admitted of no
delay, and he was forced to appoint, on a temporary basis, some
2,900 secretariat members — four times as many as the League
had ever employed— in 1946.* This hectic beginning had its in-
exorable effects, and the subsequent history of the secretariat has
been in large degree a process of correcting imbalances, ration-
alizing procedures, eliminating misfits, and reorganizing the
structure for long-term operations — a task which might have been
much less demanding if Lie’s original decisions and choices could
have been made at a more leisurely pace.

The sheer bigness of the United Nations secretariat poses prob-
lems of efficiency which are unprecedented in the international
field. The League secretariat was dwarfed by that of the new or-
ganization, which was stabilized at a figure of roughly five thou-
sand. Moreover, some two thousand members of the latter group
are stationed away from the New York headquarters, making
difficult the effective application of the concept of centralized ad-
ministrative control.

Even more significant is the extraordinary diversity of the
human resources upon which the United Nations secretariat has

R»\n. The League had a general European orientation which
was distinctly reflected in the composition of its staff. Although
the geographical distribution of posts was progressively broadened,

* Lie. op. nr, pp.

200 SWORDS INTO PLOW SHARP*

and is constitutionally required of his counterpart in the United
Nations. For better or for worse, recruitment policy cannot be
based exclusively upon the criterion of the individual’s personal
qualifications; in the field of international employment, the
relevant irrelevancy is not “whom do you know” but "where are
you from?” From a strictly administrative point of view, there is
some positive value in securing broad nationality distribution,
even at the expense of sheer quality; for some purposes, a slightly
incompetent man's nationality may make him more useful than a
more expert civil servant of inappropriate nationality. For the
most part, however, the Charter principle of geographical distri-
bution is a concession to political necessity. It licenses a kind of
international spoils system in which states seek to nourish their
national self-esteem by securing an adequate quota of interna-
tional jobs for their citizens. Ironically, perhaps, because it is
politically necessary it is also politically and administratively
desirable; what shall it profit an international organization to
maintain its administrative purity and lose its own members or
their political support?

Both the League and the United Nations have experienced the
battle over the distribution of secretariat posts. Typically, member
states have pressed for the maximization of their "quotas," and
small states collectively have protested against the tendency of
the great powers to assert a vested interest in the most important
posts. In both cases, these quarrels have subsided with the adop
tion of the rule of thumb that jobs should be allocated in ap-
proximately the same ratio as budgetary contributions of member
states, and with the compromising of the claims of small and
great powers. The price of this relative political peace, however,
has been the imposition of fairly stringent restrictions upon the
competence of the Secretary-General to base his personnel policy
upon the standards of highest efficiency. Let the citizen of the
nation where this never happens in the government service cast
the tint stone.

The problem of administrative efficiency in the United Nations
is a so complicated by the quantitative burden and qualitative
variety of functions which the secretariat must be equipped to
per orm. The veteran of Geneva who participates in the hurly*

202

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

million in 1931. 12 "Throughout its existence the League suffered
from a stupid and unnecessary penury." 13

International organization is considerably more expensive in
the United Nations era, with the central organization itself cost-
ing governments something like $40 million per year, and the
Specialized Agencies presenting a composite bill not greatly in-
ferior in size. It is tempting to draw conclusions of greater govern-
mental generosity from the fact that several of the Specialized
Agencies have budgets comparable to that of the entire League
system, and it is true that the ratio of spending has shifted from
$1 for international organization to $8000 for national govern-
ments in the League period to $1 to $1000 at the present time. 14
Nevertheless, it is still true that the objectives of international
organization are sought at bargain basement prices, a strict regime
of penny pinching is imposed upon international secretariats, and
hardly a member state, from the richest to the poorest, can refrain
from quibbling over the negligible sums which are required to
support the activities of international secretariats. We cannot be
sure that the United Nations will be permitted to escape the
vicious circle in which the League revolved: "restrictive budget,
ineffective League; ineffective League, restrictive budget.” 15

The Problem of Allegiance

A second great problem area relating to the international
secretariat is bounded by the concepts of international loyalty
an in ependence of national governments on one side, and
national loyalty and respect for the security requirements of
national governments on the other. If efficiency is the central
technical problem, questions of allegiance constitute the central
philosophical and normative problem.

though the Covenant was silent on the subject, Drummond's
lunuamental decision that the League staff should be interna-
me aracter determined the approach which the Council

” Walter*, op. cil., |l 515,

Ibid. I, Ijo.

p. 5? U ’ nC7 Wr ' 8hl * Pr »b‘tms of Stability and Progress in International Relations*
o/ ,he FuluT ‘ ^don: Royal Ii»iituie o!

PROBLEM OF TIIE INTERNATIONAL SECRETARIAT 205
act independently of their governments and responsibly to the
organization, in terms reminiscent of those used in League regula-
tions, but it also drew a lesson from League experience in im-
posing upon member states the obligation “to respect the ex-
clusively international character of the responsibilities of the
Secretary-General and the staff and not to seek to influence them
in the discharge of their responsibilities." Moreover, the General
Assembly and the analogous organs of the Specialized Agencies
established the requirement that staff members subscribe to this
concept in a formal oath of office . 21

In practice, however, the problem of allegiance has assumed
a new form in the workings of the United Nations system. Em-
phasis has shifted from the problem of securing adequate commit-
ment of the secretariat to the international interest, to that oE
assuring the maintenance of sufficient loyalty by its members to
their own states. Obviously, these problems are not neatly separa-
ble. It could be argued that the issue has simply been changed
from that of securing the acceptance of the principle of inter-
national loyalty by staff members, unaccustomed to putting them-
selves in that normative context, to securing the acceptance of
that principle by governments, unaccustomed to tolerating devia-
tion from the established norms of patriotism. From this point of
view, the loyalty demands of states upon their citizens who serve
the United Nations are simply expressions of governmental
dissent from the concept of an internationally dedicated secretar-
iat. The problem is the same as that which the League faced; the
difference is that the League concentrated on the positive job of
building the standard of international loyalty and its successor has
been forced to the defensive position of resisting the destruction
of that standard.

This argument contains something of the truth, but not all of
it. There is a distinction between the two problems. The great
issue in the United Nations has not been the propriety of inter-
national loyally, but the impropriety of ideological allegiance to
a particular movement which is antithetical to national loyalty.
The deviations from nationalism which have been primarily at
issue are not deviations toward internationalism but deviations

“F. R Scott, “The World'* Civil Service,” International Conciliation, No. <96,
January 19M. p 2S6.

204

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

indistinctness of attitude toward all questions, proceeding from a
fieedom of prejudice bom of lack of vitality, does not constitute an
international outlook. The international outlook required of the
international civil servant is an awareness made instinctive by habit
of the needs, emotions, and prejudices of the peoples of differently-
circumstanced countries, as they are felt and expressed by the
peoples concerned, accompanied by a capacity for weighing these
frequently imponderable elements in a judicial manner before
reaching any decision to which they are relevant. 20

The League encountered difficulties in establishing the pro-
priety of this rather vague principle in an extremely and in-
creasingly nationalistic world which included numerous articulate
groups to whom any subtle manifestation of less than one hundred
per cent, my -country-right-or- wrong nationalism smelled of nefari-
ous subversion. However, significant opposition to and defiance
of the organization’s efforts to realize the ideal of an interna-
tionally devoted secretariat were confined mainly to the nationals
and governments of Fascist Italy and of Germany, particularly
the Germany of the Nazi era. 21

The League conceived the allegiance problem in the positive
terms of securing the independence and international loyalty of
the secretariat, and its record was one of substantial, though not
unblemished, success in realizing this purpose. The reflections of
an outstanding group of League officials confirmed that:

Experience shows that a spirit of international loyalty among public
servants can be maintained in practice. It shows also that main-
tenance of such a spirit is an essential factor in the activity of an
international service, since this alone can ensure to it that confi-
dence without which it cannot function as it ought. . . . National
interests must be represented and defended, of course, but repre-
sentation (in the diplomatic sense) and defence should not be the
function of secretariat officials.* 2

The United Nations began with the constitutional incorpora-
tion and elaboration of the principle of international independ-
ence which the League had adopted in practice. Article 100 of
the Charter not only stipulated that members of the staff should

■L'" 1 ?’ " S „° me Problem s of an International Civil Service."

mSSSTw'T'* Spti "* I913 - p 95-

op ’ ctt ' Chapters 16 and 17.
ational Secretarial 0 / the Future, pp. 19 20.

PROBLEM OF THE INTERNATIONAL SECRETARIAT *07

The greatest crisis in the history of the international secretariat
occurred in 1952 and 1953, when the rampant forces of demagogic
anti -Communism in the United States concentrated their lire
upon the United Nations. A series of inquiries by a Federal
Gland Jury and Congressional investigating groups produced
small group of American stafF members— about one per cen
the United States citizens employed by the United Nations
who admitted past membership in the Communist Party o
sorted to the constitutional privilege of silence when
about Communist affiliations. None of these persons wa m
or otherwise seriously charged with specific violations of Amman
law or definite acts of betrayal of American interests. In the > 'per-
charged atmosphere of the American political arena i. how e,cr
these meager findings were magnified into decisive eviden e that
the United Nations had been infiltrated by an ore ' ,

large group of disloyal United Suite, citizen,.- and n ndous
pressure was brought upon the Secretary- «\era ' Jat Jn
independence as chief officer of an in te deliberately

order to appease an American publm whtchh^ ^

aroused by its lunatic fringe; U ;« P u „ho eonvirteil
over United Nations personnel policy to vidian d

American staff member, of subversion on slender et idenee and . )

flagrantly unjudicial methods. challenge combined

The Secretary-General’s response to th,s chaUenRe ^ ^

vigorous insistence upon recogni . ,j, e exercise of

was answerable only to the ™ ,e political necessity of

his functions, with discreet ^ ^ “dSnis.ra.ion of the
regaining American , to compromise <1* >"■

secretariat. He asserted his ° accenting dictation from

tegrity of his Internationa pos ^ J jure {rom any nation, and
any government or succU o^P distort5on n f the facts

denounced the gross ex gS criticisms of tlie secretariat in
which characterized a»l P “ a tht Uteri, dial no Amen-

the United States. But he afco = tlie United Nation,.

can Communist excited suspicion by re

fired temporary staff American imestlg.uors,

losing to answer question, put w 7

AMtmbly on

-5S.S » a:™:™ i^s^srss. ? «

206

sworn

NTO PLOWSHARES

toward Communism. The problems have tended to merge in the
sense that national efforts to ensure that the secretariats of the
United Nations system are not contaminated by members disloyal
to their own country have collided with the principle of the in-
dependence of the international civil service; but it is clear that
this amounts to an incidental violation of the procedural means
for obtaining a genuinely international secretariat, rather than a
deliberately direct assault upon the substantive concept itself. The
United Nations and its sister organizations do have to grapple
with the same problem which confronted the League, that of
maintaining secretariat independence as a protective shield for
the positive work of building a staff wholly dedicated to the inter-
national interest; but national pressures have produced tire view,
implicitly accepted by the international agencies themselves, that
the critical problem is now that of safeguarding the integrity of
the international civil service against the membership of persons
who are inadequately loyal to their own states.

This problem has been posed primarily by the United States.
As the country in which the United Nations maintains its major
headquarters, as the supplier of the largest national group of
secretariat members, as the indispensable financial supporter of
the organization, and as an extraordinarily influential great power,
the United States lias been able almost singlehandedly to impose
its definition of the problem of allegiance upon the United Na-
tions.

The heart of the American position has been the contention
that Americans who are Communists or quasi-Communists should
n . 0t 'ij ^ onsidered eli giblc to obtain or retain secretariat posts. It
should be noted that the demand implicit in this view is not that
American members of international staffs should serve the inter-
ests o t e United States, but that they should not serve the in-
terests of the Soviet Union. This distinguishes the American posi-
ton tram that of the fascist states, which undertook to use their
national .in the League secretariat, and from that which the
ommunist states are assumed to maintain with respect to their
nationals in international posts. This American position is one
enrK, Ca< ? S ^ United Nations secretariat have consist-
ently and heartily espoused as their own.”

“See Lie, op cif , p 388<

PROBLEM

209

OF THE INTERNATIONAL SECRETARIAT

This episode brought little credit to the United States Govern-
ment. In general terms, the responsible managers of American
relations with the United Nations were not guilty of positive
disrespect for the principle of the independence of the interna-
tional secretariat, but they were guilty of failure to give adequate
assistance to the Secretary-General in his efforts to withstand the
assaults of intemperate American critics. At worst, the govern-
ment left Lie to fight the battle for the integrity of his staff alone
and unaided; at best, it devised a scheme— the system for ^in-
vestigation of American members of international staffs— wic
would assist him and the administrative heads of the Specialized
Agencies in satisfying assailants. The government was har presse
to save itself, and the constitutional values of the American po iti
cal system, from the ravages of reactionary attack, and it had little
strength to devote to the salvation of the United Nations an e
emergent constitutional values of international organization.

The battle has subsided, and it appears that Lie s tactic, that o
doing what his American critics insisted that he do ut o* K
less arbitrarily than they wished and maintaining 11131 * .

right not to do it, was successful: suspected American o n
been eliminated, new machinery has been set into mo 1
enabling the United States to give official notice of i
toward international employment of its citizens, t e .
General has acquired a freer hand in discharging emp °) c
political loyalties are under suspicion , 80 and the P nn P ,

independence of the secretariat has been formally vindicated and
solemnly reaffirmed. . . *

Nevertheless, it is not yet clear that the ins ^ t “! 10 ” Amer ican
national secretariat has escaped vital damage. % l C na .

investigatory system formally respects the principe nQt

tional government can only give information and ^ ad .

dictate the personnel policy of international agencies. Y

*» plain that an international chief of staff can dcchne to accept
»be advice of the United States Government concern! g
of an American citizen for employment on y 3 , Lodcre,

P'«ipiu.in E 3 crisis. In tl.c (all of 1951. Atobrssndor Lod„e.

, -ta O* mi ot a. b > > h « C "’ m ' A “” b '' “ t>OT ” b " S '

Charter fln-tm Document!, pp 2IJ 217.
ihe itltimt LxKuiite Orders. ibid. PP *

208

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

and terminated the contracts of permanent employees who had
put themselves in the same position, after first obtaining the
opinion of a special committee of legal advisers that he was within
his rights in so doing. 29 Moreover, he moved to prevent the de-
velopment of similar crises in the future by endorsing the pro-
priety of a new plan whereby the United States Government
would conduct an investigation of all present and future Amer-
ican members of international staffs, agreeing to use the admin-
istrative machinery of the United Nations to facilitate the execu-
tion of this plan, and committing himself to give serious attention
to derogatory evidence against American employees which might
be discovered and submitted to him under this system of inquiry. 27

It is clear that Lie's acceptance of the proposition that the
purging of Communistically inclined Americans from the secre-
tariat was a matter of vital urgency rested primarily upon con-
siderations of political necessity. As for its intrinsic merits, the
best he could say for this proposition was that “an American Com-
munist is not a representative American citizen”; he asserted that
he “had no fear of espionage or sabotage or other threat to the
security of the United States by reason of activities of such Com-
munists within the United Nations. There was nothing to spy
on in the United Nations ... the United Nations svas about as
bamn a field for spies as could be imagined." 28 He stated his
position regarding American Communists in these terms: “1 did
not want them there for good policy reasons, but I was not afraid
that any who remained would overthrow the United States gov-
ernment and subvert its constitution.” M In short, he believed that
the Communist problem in the secretariat was objectively a mole-
hill, but recognized that it had become a subjective mountain
which had to be removed if the United Nations was not to be
estroyed by the withdrawal of American public support.

th « acted bad advice. The Admin-
the staff tv err Uni,ttS Nations ruled that eleven permanent members of

trac tiial tiehu 'T?* " “mpewatioo for discharge in violation of their con-
SEMt I^Vr d S ™r ur *« General Assembly to set aside this
tained an Advimrv n i VOle ? to honor this obligation, after having ob ’

alterative ? P v TV* ,he Court to the effoct that it had no 1^1

For the Srereiarv r D «™ber 18. 1931.

op. at.. Chapter XXI cnera ** Tcnion ©I this episode and of his policy, *ce *- ic ’
“fl-nJ, p. JSU.

"Ibid, p. 3D].

211

PROBLEM OF THE INTERNATIONAL SECRETARIAT

a field where national governments insist upon the ugh
trample at will.

The Problem of Political Initiative

A final constitutional

claims attention is the q« e ^ 10 inherent f a re] auve matter;
initiative and involvement. This . 0 £ analyti-

administration and policy inevitably merge «r-

cal dividing lines, and the I'd " bureau-
ganization as in national govern sense t j ia t inter-

crats will influence policy. It is re ative a ^ the intrusions of
ested partisans alternately welcome depending upon their

“rartve officials P^on specific

approval or disapproval of ‘>K experts" and

issues. One welcomes the supp . -.tentative bureaucrats."
denounces the opposition junction between the con-

staff which was espoused by Alber d tQward the

The San Francisco ^"ion” sLretariat. Focusing its
Thomas conception oltihcmK Gener3 l. it conferred

attention upon the office functions of head

upon the occupant of; that of the Organiza-

of the staff and clue a ^ writing Article 90 into the

lion,” ** but also a ’ General to function as a kind

Charter, authorizing the Sc ry „ by invo king the

of “twelfth member of the $ which he deems relevant

consideration by that body ^ the Conference justified

to the maintenance of p of the United Nations is that

the statement that A too , nternational sta tesman.“ w The no-
m:rS se"ccnem. should be no, Hug more .ban an

» \uirtc 97 of the chlrteT . t Ut United Xenons, p. 2S.

*sch*«bel. The SecTeUTyCen*™ I

210 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

chief American spokesman in the United Nations, denounced the
Director-General of UNESCO for having failed promptly and
unquestioningly to dismiss all Americans on his staff who had re-
ceived unfavorable loyalty reports, 81 thereby indicating that the
American conception of the independence of international a -
ministrative leaders does not include recognition of their ng t
to reject the “advice” of Washington. Moreover, Mr. Lodge en-
tered public objections to a report prepared by the Internationa
Civil Service Advisory Board, in which the basic principle of in-
ternational loyalty of secretariat officials prescribed in Article
of the Charter was restated, and belligerently declared his inten-
tion “to do something about it.” 88 It may be that the Unite
Nations has survived the barrage of attacks by American extrem-
ists only to find itself permanently subjected to the thinly con
cealed domination of Washington in regard to questions bearing
upon the loyalty of United States citizens in the internationa
service.

Additionally, the question of generalizing the concessions ma e
to the United States involves a serious dilemma for internationa
organization. If the headquarters of the United Nations and tie
Specialized Agencies are to become infested with investigating
missions from each member state, and if the presumption is to c
admitted that the international employment of any person w 0
fails to meet the standards of political allegiance defined by 1S
particular government is of doubtful propriety, the future ° 11
international civil service is dim indeed. On the other hand,
only the United States is to be permitted to intervene in this
fashion, there is no conceivable way of avoiding the developmen
of the impression that the agencies of the United Nations system
are peculiarly under the American thumb. ,

In short, the problem of allegiance poses difficulties for the
institution of the international secretariat for which no solution*
are in sight. International loyalty is an anomaly in an intense y
nationalistic world, yet it is the indispensable basis for an effective
international staff. It is not incompatible with national l°y^ c ’
but it is a tender plant which cannot be successfully cultivate

PROBLEM OP THE INTERNATIONAL SECRETARIAT 213

where were his divisions?” 38 This is an important point, but not
so important as it looks. Successful political leadership requires
physical power at its command as a last resort, but that sort of
power is the emergency medication, not the daily bread, of po-
litical leadership. Would Calvin Coolidge have been a stronger
President than Franklin Roosevelt with twice as many police
behind him? The crucial limitation on Trygve Lie’s United Na-
tions statesmanship was not his lack of an army to command, but
his lack of a party to lead and a body politic to rally behind him.
His weakness derived not so much from a lack of military weapons
as from an inability to compete effectively with national states-
men in the use of political weapons.

In general, Lie found that his supporters were a fickle crew,
staying with him only so long as his definition of the international
interest happened to coincide with their national policies. At one
time or another, virtually every important member state praised
him as the champion of the real interests of the human family,
and denounced him as an ally of the forces of evil. In the latter
case, disapproval of his substantive position was customarily pre-
faced by denial of his right, as a mere office boy of sovereign
states, to have any position at all. The United Nations bids fair
to rival the United States as the institutional homeland of those
who prefer argument about constitutional authority to debate
about substantive policy.

Operating in a world where clashes of national interest rele-
gated the problem of the international interest to a low spot on
the agenda of attention, Lie had to define the international inter-
est primarily in the negative terms of the avoidance of open
warfare among the great powers. When he abandoned this media-
torial role in 1950, to espouse the positive international interest
in collective security against even an aggression supported by a
great power, he soon found himself encumbered by the excessively
affectionate embrace of the United States, which would not recog-
tiize the right his term tt? expire, and ibz* ioe.vnraWe -hostility
of the Soviet Union, which would not recognize his continued
existence. Maintained in office by an American procedural
maneuver of dubious constitutionality, he struggled against over-

** Lie, op at , p 42

212

SWORDS INTO PLOW

anonymous, unobtrusive, administrative technician was discarded
in favor of the effort to create the foundations of a new office-
that of an international chief executive .® 7

It fell to Trygve Lie, the first Secretary-General of the new
organization, to begin the task of filling in the rough sketch of his
institutional position which had been provided by the Charter.
He proceeded with a keen sense of the challenging potentialities
of the office and an equal consciousness of the factors limiting t ie
development of effective international statesmanship in the mi
twentieth century. His political task was fraught with extraor-
dinary perils and pregnant with unprecedented possibilities.

The resources discovered and developed by Lie were vane in
nature. They included the capacity to stand before the worl as
the ideological symbol of international organization and t e
unique spokesman for the global interest, and to stand before t ie
World Court and to sit in negotiations with states and other inter-
national agencies as the head of the United Nations and t e
official representative of its institutional interests. They include
the opportunity to exert powerful influence, both positively an
negatively, upon the content of the agendas of all the organs o
the United Nations, and to intervene freely in the debates. * e
made his Annual Report a kind of State of the Union message,
and sought to realize the potentialities of the power of proposa
and evaluation. He found himself the possessor of significant in
fluence through the power to present legal opinions and researc
studies, to participate in drafting of resolutions, to nominate
mediators, investigators, and the like, to prepare budgetary a
locations, and to control the day-by-day operations of bodies
ranging from armistice supervision teams to technical assistance
missions. He became the chief coordinator of the world s new y
elaborated organizational system and a major consultant, liaison
man, and conciliator in the world’s old system of diplomacy-

These resources have their obviously significant limitations-
Superficially, the major point is that they do not include any-
thing resembling a coeTcive capacity. As Lie himself put h- ®
was advised to be “more the general than the secretary— u

"See The United Nations Secretariat, United Nations Studies 4 (New York
Carnegie Endowment tor International Peace, 1950). pp. 19-SO.

PROBLEM OF THE INTERNATIONAL SECRETARIAT 215

less represents the most valuable product to date of the historical
process of international organization; it is, in the words of Pierre
Mendes-France, "that valuable and fragile nucleus of a united
world . . . that valiant group of men and women who are more
sensitive than any others to the progress and incidents in relations
between nations, and to the successes or failures in international
cooperation.” 42

SUGGESTED READINGS

Cohen, Maxwell, “The United Nations Secretariat — Some Constitu.
tional and Administrative Developments,” American Journal of
International Law , July 1955, pp. 295-319.

The International Secretariat of the Future, London: Royal Institute
oi International Affairs, 1944.

Jackson, Elmore, “The Developing Role oi the Secretary-General,"
International Organization, Summer 1957, pp. 431-445.

Lie, Trygve, In the Cause of Peace, New York: Macmillan, 1954.

Loveday, A., Reflections on International Administration, London:
Oxford University Press, 1956.

Phelan, E. J., Yes and Albert Thomas, New York: Columbia Univer-
sity Press, 1949.

Ramhofen-Wertheimer, Egon F„ The International Secretarial: A
Great Experiment in International Administration, Washington:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1945.

Schwebel, Stephen M., The Secretary-General of the United Nations,
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952.

Scotr, F. R., "The World's Civil Service,” International Conciliation,
No. 496, January 1954.
u New York Times, November 23, 1954.

214

SWORDS

NTO PLOWSHARES

powering odds until 1953, when he retired in favor of Dag
Hammarskjold, who could begin his work with an asset which
Lie had irretrievably lost, and which the Charter had clear y
intended to be the fundamental equipment of its projected inter-
national statesman: the confidence of all the great powers.

The question of the amount of international statesmanship
permitted by the realities of world politics can never be answers
precisely or permanently. Generalization about the politica p°
tential of international secretariats must be tempered by rec °o
nition of the differences between international organizations, n
Eric Drummond and Albert Thomas were not simply distin
guished by different backgrounds and temperaments; they were
heads of different organizations. In one of the supreme examp es
of historical casting, Thomas, the dynamic politician, went to t ie
International Labor Organization, and Drummond, the so er
civil servant, to the League. As the latter put it, “It is’quite, quite
certain that Albert Thomas in my job would have been force to
resign. They wouldn’t have stood for it. He would have trie ^
and failed. The 'Chancellor’ wouldn’t have been successfu .
The concept of the permanent staff’s leading role in policy e
termination which has proved acceptable and valuable in tie
International Bank 10 is not necessarily transferable to sue a
general political organization as the United Nations.

The Secretary General of the United Nations has
tional license to be as big a man as he can. He has a limited o 7
of precedents to guide him. He has a newly-formulated idea °
international statesmanship to serve as a light unto his feet—
blind him to the hard realities if he permits it to shine in his eyes-
He has the difficult task of wending his way between the folly °
attempting too much and the ignominy of risking too little.^ ^
has a uniquely challenging position, for as Trygve Lie put it: 1
political role of the Secretary-General of the United Nation* **
something new to the world. The concept of a spokesman for ^ *
world interest is in many ways far ahead of our times. ■ ■ ■
The unsolved problems of the international secretariat, an
the unchecked threats to its integrity, are legion, but it never
*“ Schwebct, op. fit, p. 3 . . , u iy

"See John J. MeCloy, "The Lesson of the World Bank." Foreign *B a ’ a
1949, pp. 539 560.

*’ Op. cit , p 88.

APPROACHES
TO PEACE
THROUGH
INTERNATIONAL
ORGANIZATION

Peaceful Settlement
of Disputes

The Causes of War and the Conditions of Peace

International organization is fundamentally, even though not
exclusively, a reaction to the problem of war. In truth, it would
be necessary even if the possibility of armed hostilities should
somehow permanently disappear from the modern international
scene; in that unlikely event, international organization might
become an even more indispensable part of the equipment of
world civilization.

This probability is suggested by the example of the American
federal system. The central government of the United States is
not maintained today as an antidote to the danger of civil war
among the forty-eight states; the essentiality of its role has In-
creased during the last century despite the transformation of the
political situation from one in which civil war was an imminent
possibility to one in which internecine conflict is almost tin-
thinkable. Indeed, it could be argued that the United States
Government has grown in importance because of that transforma-
tion, which has brought with it an intensification of relationships
across state lines which increasingly necessitates central policy-
making and administrative services.

The point is that government is required not simply because

319

CHAPTER

Peaceful Settlement
of Disputes

The Causes of War and the Conditions of Peace

International organization is fundamentally, even though not
exclusively, a reaction to the problem of war. In truth, it ivould
be necessary even if the possibility of armed hostilities should
somehow permanently disappear from the modern international
scene; in that unlikely event, international organization might
become an even more indispensable part of the equipment of
world civilization.

This probability is suggested by the example of the American
federal system. The central government of the United States is
not maintained today as an antidote to the danger of civil war
among the forty-eight states; the essentiality of its role has in-
creased during the last century despite the transformation of the
political situation from one in which civil war was an imminent
possibility to one in which internecine conflict is almost un-
thinkable. Indeed, it could be argued that the United States
Government has grown in importance because of that transforma-
tion, which has brought with it an intensification of relationships
across state lines which increasingly necessitates central policy-
making and administrative services.

The point is that government is required not simply because

219

220 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

men are in conflict but also became they are in comac.-J.nd the
less hostile men are toward each other, the more they data ram
the contact, which require the facilitating function, of govern
ment. Hobbesian men need government to suppress antiso
belligerence; Lockian men need government for the less sl ™°
but equally vital function of regulating and lubricating t
lationships which stem from their very sociability. Lockian me
require a different sort of government than Hobbesian men,
in the final analysis, they require more, not less, government.

All this applies to the international realm. Objective y,
need for international organization exists, independently o
problem of war. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the main
impetus for international organization has derived from tbe urg
to avoid war, and it is doubtful whether the subjective basis tor
organizational efforts would exist if the danger of war were
eliminated. For all practical purposes, international organizatio
must be looked upon as an expression of the quest for wo

Given the antiwar orientation of the movement towar m
national organization, it is clear that collective approac ies ^
peace must rest upon assumptions concerning the nature ant
causes of war. The phenomenon of war has been regar e 1
many different ways. It has been viewed as a salutary extras *
contributing usefully to the development of men and of nations
It has been considered as an inescapable reality, derivm 0 m
evitably from the nature of individual and collective man. nter
national organization represents a denial of both these conten
tions; it assumes that war should be, and can be, prevente ^
Beyond this, there has been very limited agreement among ^
makers and supporters of international agencies in the ana ysis ^
the problem of war. Various approaches to peace throng m ^
national organization have been advocated, formulated, an a
tempted, each of them resting upon a distinctive conception
the natuie of war and therefore emphasizing a correspon m
distinctive solution for the problem of war. . .

The assumptions about war which constitute the theoreti^^
underpinnings of organizational enterprises have not always ^
clearly articulated or even consciously adopted by those
have acted upon them. International organization > s ‘ * e "

221

PEACEFUL SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES
of pragmatic statesmen engaged in the experimental pursuit of
objectives, not of theorists engaged in the systematic construction
of institutions upon philosophical foundations. Nevertheless, the
underlying assumptions of international agenc.es have operative
significance, and a sophisticated understanding of these founda-
tion stones is essential to the serious study of the process of inter
national organization. . , .

This and succeeding chapters are devoted to an analysis of the
various approaches to peace through international organization
which have been given expression in the United Nations sys •
In each case, we shall expose for critical examination the assump-
tion about the nature of war which provides the theoretical

tionale for the particular presmiption for avo.dance of war

then relate the therapeutic results to the diagnostic P™' se ;

It Will be noted that the contemporary system of international
organization represents the adoption of a number o approach
to peace, which derive from different conceptions of he na.u a
and causation of war. However dogmatic and ""

thinkers may be in explaining the cause 0 clearly

peace, the founding fathers of the United Nations have : c eariy
been prepared to try every device which shows
tributing to the conditions of peace, and to reje« «
ance upon any single device. Our present rmntutronal ruemre
is analogous to a shotgun rather than a nBe. inasmuch..
distrust of the accuracy of anyone’s aim a. a subitum
erence for releasing a shower of shots m the °

the problem: we do not know tvhich approach to p
so we try them all, hoping that not all the shots w.H * ™ “
In view of the world’s lack ot an analysts ol «he prob mi el war
which could give the commendation o! . sc, ' n ‘‘ , , icism th is

particular method ol solution, this otganna tonal 1 ecle henna,
dedication to randomness, has .he virtues ol

However, the United Nation, system ts no. ' Itl
about marksmanship as this concept would seem . . md cate „„
experimentation with a variety ol solutions is "« ““W
iesLn ol ignorance as

correct answer to the problem of * , menorii produced

sophisticated hunch that war n a CO P only by ,hc

by multiple causes, and suscept

220

SWORDS

INTO PLOWSHARES

men ate in conflict but also because they ate in contact-and Ute
let, hostile men ate toward each othet, the mote they elabo am
the contacts sshich tequite the iacilitattng funct.ons of govetn
ment. Hobbesian men need govetnment to suppress anttsocal
belligerence; LocUan men need govetnment for the less stren
but equally vital function of regulating and lubricatm*
lationship* 7 which stem from their very sociability. LocUan m
require a different sort of government than Hobbesian men,
in the final analysis, they require more, not less, governmen .

All this applies to the international realm. Objectively,
need for international organization exists, independently ot tn
problem of war. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the ma
impetus for international organization has derived from the fe
to avoid war, and it is doubtful whether the subjective basis tor
organizational efforts would exist if the danger of war w
eliminated. For all practical purposes, international organiz
must be looked upon as an expression of the quest tor s

Given the antiwar orientation of the movement towar in
national organization, it is clear that collective approac es
peace must rest upon assumptions concerning the natu * e ?.
causes of war. The phenomenon of war has been regar e
many different ways. It has been viewed as a salutary exerci ,
contributing usefully to the development of men and of ^ atl ° '
It has been considered as an inescapable reality, deriving
evitably from the nature of individual and collective man. n ^
national organization represents a denial of both these co
tions; it assumes that war should be, and can be, preven
Beyond this, there has been very limited agreement amon„ ^ ^
makers and supporters of international agencies in the ana ysis '
the problem of war. Various approaches to peace throug n’ ^
national organization have been advocated, formulated, an ^
tempted, each of them resting upon a distinctive conceptio
the nature of war and therefore emphasizing a correspon in 0
distinctive solution for the problem of war. . .

The assumptions about war which constitute the theore^i^
underpinnings of organizational enterprises have not alv>a>*
clearly articulated or even consciously adopted by t osc
have acted upon them. International organization is t e '

PEACEFUL SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES 223

characteristic of men, the latter of beasts, we should have recourse
to the second only when it is not permitted to use the first.” 4 In
modern times, war has become so costly, so destructive, so im-
precise in its impact and unpredictable in its results, that its
continued use for the settlement of disputes is insupportable.

In terms of this analysis, the problem is to find, develop, institu-
tionalize, and persuade states to use other methods for the solu-
tion of their differences. War can be eliminated only by the pro-
vision of a functional equivalent. The task of international or-
ganization is to make available a variety of peaceful substitutes
for the technique of violence, and to encourage — if not to insist
upon — their utilization by the parties to disputes.

This has the apparent virtue of being a ‘‘head-on’’ approach
to the problem of war, going directly and immediately to the
locus of the problem, but it is marked by the superficiality which
is all too frequently characteristic of common-sense attitudes. War
occurs when states disagree; it is simply a clumsy and now an
intolerably dangerous method of Tesolving disputes; hence, it
must be, and can be, supplanted by superior methods for pro-
ducing settlements. The adequacy of such a simple analysis is
surely open to question.

The pacific settlement approach has been characterized by
emphasis upon the problem of discouraging resort to war as a
means of solving disputes. It appears that war, even though it has
been interpreted in functional terms, has been recognized as a
problem in itself; the task is not so much to settle the quarrel as
to prevent the adoption of violent means for its settlement. The
pacific settlement physician finds himself engaged as seriously in
curing the addiction to a false remedy as in curing the original
disease. In dealing with this problem, the pacific settlement ap-
proach reveals a series of basic assumptions about the nature of
war. These may be described as secondary assumptions, in con-
tradistinction to the primary assumption that war is a means for
solving disputes.

In the first place, it is assumed that war is chosen as a settle-
ment device because of the passions that are aroused by disputes.
War is a kind of national temper tantrum; in the heat of anger,

•Cited in Frank M. Runetl. Thrones of International Ttelatlom (New Yotkt
Appleton Cmiurjr-Cjofu, 1956), p. 157.

222

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

simultaneous application of a number of carefully interrelated
methods. The world today is not engaged in an undiscrimmating
search for the certain answer to the problem of war, but m a
tentative effort to develop adequately complex means for dealing
with that complex problem.

Pacific Settlement as an Approach to Peace

Perhaps the oldest and most ubiquitous of the approaches to
peace which have been formulated by thinkers about interna-
tional relations and injected into the stream of internationa
organization is that of the pacific settlement of disputes. One
could go back to the civilization of ancient Greece and find city-
states registering agreement that “If there be any dispute . •
whether about boundaries or anything else, the matter shall e
judicially decided. But if any city of the allies quarrel with an-
other, they shall appeal to some city which both deem to be im-
partial.” 1 Jumping to modern Europe, we find the powers as-
sembled at Paris in 1856 expressing the wish that ‘‘States, <-■
tween which any serious misunderstanding may arise, shoul .
before appealing to arms, have recourse, as far as circumstances
might allow, to the good offices of a friendly Power." s Emphasis
upon this approach to peace in contemporary international or-
ganization stems directly from the conclusion of Conventions for
the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes at the two Hague
Conferences.*

In essence, this approach rests upon the assumption that war is
a technique for the settlement of the disputes which arise among
nations. It is not a crime of national leaders or a disease of inter
national society, but simply a traditional method of resolving 1 1
quarrels that inevitably arise in international as in all ot *’^ r
societies. However, it has always been an inappropriate metli »
undistinguished for the moral quality of the solutions which U
has produced, and unworthy of the character of man; as Cicero
put it, "Since there are two methods of settling a difference, 1 1
one by argument, the other by force, and since the former t*

*J. n Scott, Law, the Stale, and the International Community (New SOik-
lutnbU University press. 1939). II, 261. ...

•Scott, The Reports to the Hague Conference* of 1899 and 1907, pp-

•For the lexis. see i&itf , pp. 32-42, 292 309.

225

PEACEFUL SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES

Senator Vandenberg was somewhat less cynical, but equally confi-
dent of the curative value of postponement per se, when he
asserted that the "cooling-off” process prescribed by the Charter
"will temper and discourage impetuous wrath which too often
flames out of sudden national hysteria. It allows time for rules of
reason to reendow our sanities.” *

A second assumption underlying pacific settlement doctrine is
that war is often caused by ignorance and misunderstanding of
the facts involved in an international crisis. Rushing into hostili-
ties is the result of jumping to conclusions— about, for instance,
who blew up the battleship Maine, or what lay behind an assas-
sination at Sarajevo. The great thing is to bring out the acts, to
dispel the fear that breeds in darkness, to eliminate the suspicions
bom of prejudice, to counteract the falsehoods planted by malev-
olence and cultivated by chauvinism, and thus to prevent govern-
ments from leading— deceptively or innocently— their peoples
into war over grievances which seem greater than they really are.
In keeping svitlt this belief, the advocates of peaceful settlement
from the first Hague Conference to the present, have set grea
store by the mention of the impartial commission ol inquiry. If
the investigators can putter around at some lengt , so
better: but they can serve the cause ol peace no, mere y by k, 11-
ing time, but also by allaying the misapprehensions and correct! g
the misconceptions of the disputants. - i

Thirdly, it 1, assumed that war results from m rn mnal
quarrels because the pride of governments an P^°P see j,

too heavily involved in these situations to permt beeins

a more reasonable and less drastic solution, nee a l P J

harsh allegations, bitter denunciations, tndignan, dentals and
defiant challenge, become the order of the day, and U t b —
difficult to back down, to admit error, or to comprom “ “
If traditional international law ascribed to war .he legal
of a duel, champions of pacific settlement have attr bumd m .t
the psychological character of a duel; war “““
seems to be no hSnomble alternative for stubborn and presuge
conscious states.

. <9 is Congressional Record, Vol. 91, 5,

■Speech in Ihe Senate, June 29. t - on s T ' 1

224

sword:

INTO PLOWSHARES

peoples fail to seek and disdain to use the rational means of solu-
tion which are available, and, losing their heads, rush rashly into

war. . .. t

The obvious solution is to impose delay, to institute a ' cooling-
off*’ period, so that tempers may subside and temperate judgment
may pre\ail Tins has been a favorite tactic of the champions of
peaceful settlement. The Hague Conventions carried the recoin
mendation that states postpone hostilities while disintereste
mediation or inquiry by a special commission took place; the net-
work of bilateral conciliation treaties negotiated for the Unite
States by Secretary of State Bryan, beginning in 1913, called for
a mandatory delay of one year in initiating war; the drafters o
the elaborate peaceful settlement provisions of the League Cove-
nant hoped "to enforce on the parties a delay of some months be-
fore any war took place, believing that during that period some
pacific solution would be found" 9 "and the United Nations
Charter similarly demands resort to methods and agencies o
peaceful settlement whenever disputes become acute.®

In each of these cases, the time gained by the moratorium on
violence is supposed to be used in the active pursuit of solutions
which will make ultimate resort to force unnecessary. However,
pacific settlement theory has always relied heavily upon the sup-
position that delay will prove a good in itself; aside from what «
done with the time, the mere passage of time will have a healing
effect, and the important thing is to secure an interval upon
almost any pretext. As Leonard Woolf put it, one of the reasons
for the peace-keeping utility of an international conference is that
it prevents excitement by being so intolerably dull. When a score
of diplomatic gentlemen have been sitting around a green baize
table discussing an international question for a fortnight, they
have killed all interest in that question for at least a year. The
Algeciras Conference killed the Morocco question in this way.
Before it met, Germany and France were boiling with excitement,
long before it finished its work, everyone was so bored with it that
it was quite impossible to use Morocco as a tarur belli for five
years. . . J

•Lord Robert Cecil, A Great Experiment, p. 74.

•Article S3.

• International Government, p. 1M.

227

PEACEFUL SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES

appraisals.' "* It may be the peculiar responsibility of intermedi-
aries to supply the ideas and appraisals that are essential for the
preservation of peace.

Finally, the traditional doctrine of pacific settlement has rested
heavily upon the proposition that war is a product of the irrespon-
sibility of selfish and cynical national leaders. Kant expressed the
belief that autocratic rulers were prone to go to war all too
readily, since they stood to reap the gains of war without paying
the price; “the ruler . . . does not lose a whit by the war, while
he goes on enjoying the delights of his table or sport, or of us
pleasure palaces and gala days. He can therefore decide on war for
the most trifling reasons, as if it were a kind of pleasure party.
This notion has been deeply embedded in the international or-
ganizational theory of the twentieth century. Kings, dictators,
diplomats, militarists, financiers, and arms manufacturers have
shared the opprobrium of the accusation that they are the rascals
who lead unwitting peoples to the slaughter for their private
ends; their accusers range from Marx to Wilson to the Nye Com-

mittee. , . ,

The most obvious solution to the problem of war, conceived
in these conspiratorial terms, is the one that Kant prescribed and
Wilson espoused: let the people decide questions of war and
peace — i.e., establish democratic systems in every state an
can rest assured that the potential victims ol war will w«gh i the
matter well, before undertaking such a bad busmess. Addition-
ally, however, pacific settlement doctrine proposes an interna-
tional contribution to the solution: let Internationa agencte
shine the spotlight of publicity upon disputes, exposing
machinations and deceptions of war-minded leaders, an ena
the democratic forces of the countries concemc art o
world at large — to see the need and grasp the oppor uni Y
insisting upon decent and rational solutions. Accor mg °
conception, war is a phenomenon of the proverbial smoke-filled

'A Study of liar (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. JW2). H. m7 ' °° py
nghi. 1912. by the University of Chicago; edited by A. Robert

" Prrprtual Pracr, translated by M. Campbell Smith i and , Editor

Capon, gri. -The Little Library of Liberal Arts," OsUr P,«t. Genera
(New York: The Liberal Arts Press, 1948), p. 12.

“ Ibid , p ll.

226 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

At this point, pacific settlement steps in with face-saving graces.
Appealing at a relatively low level, it offers to inject into the
dispute a disinterested party, with whom negotiations may be
conducted by states which have become too estranged to negotiate
with each other, and to whom concessions can be made which
either state would refrain, as a point of honor, from making
directly to the other. Pitching its appeal somewhat higher, pacific
settlement seeks to establish the proposition that what is dis-
honorable is resort to an avoidable war. The supreme evidence of
national manliness is not readiness to engage in internationa
fisticuffs, but demonstration of the national adulthood which ex-
presses itself in a sense of responsibility to the community s inter-
est in internationa! decorum. Whatever a state gives up in order to
avoid war becomes, in these terms, less a concession to the op-
posing disputant than a contribution to the welfare of the larger
community. These two appeals are combined when the inter-
vention of a third party distinguished by the symbols of peculiar
respectability is suggested, for instance, that of an arbitral tribuna
or a court. The supposition is that while states may take a certain
muscular pride in willingness to fight, they may value more high y
the moral pride which they can derive from exhibition of devo-
tion to the rule of law. Pacific settlement is heavily committed to
the proposition that states need help in getting themselves out o
psychological dead-end streets.

A further hypothesis is that states frequently go to war for lac
of imagination; blinded by their aroused passions and wounde
sensitivities, they are unable to conceive honorable schemes o
mutual accommodation and consequently blunder into belliger-
ence in a state of intellectual bankruptcy. Again, the concept o
the third party becomes relevant. The function of the outsider
is to exercise the creative imagination which is the special gift °
the dispassionate observer, bringing to the attention of the emo-
tionally distraught participants the reasonable alternatives to a
violent resolution of the dispute. Proposals which would never
occur to the disputants may receive their concurrence, especially
if sober recognition of the grim consequences of modern war can
be induced. As Quincy Wright has said, “In modern civilization
war springs from 'emotions devoid of ideas and desires devoid o

229

PEACEFUL SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTLS
conclusion of efforts at pacification, and formalizing the right of
outsiders to invoke community action to forestall the collapse ot
world peace. 1 * In consequence of the general recognition that the
Covenant's legal barrier against the violent settlement of disputes
was marked by "gaps,” the League Assembly adopted in 1924 the
Geneva Protocol, which purported to close these breaches and to
subject any state guilty of attempting to crash through the wall
pf pacific settlement to the charge and the penalties of aggre -
Sion . 11 This project failed for want of ratification, but in 1928
most of the states of the world agreed, in the Pact of Pans
"condemn recourse to war for the solution of international con-
troversies, and renounce it as an instrument of national policy
their relations with one another,” and to restrict their efforts to

solve conflicts to “pacific means .” 15 . ,„hirh

This trend culminated in the United Nations Char«r >vh *
commits member states (and purports to obligate ellotherstates,
in almost equal degree) to seek peaceful solutions and I n , any case
to abjure coercive solutions of disputes, and aut ion
ranging from uninvolved states to the Secretary-Ceneral, to ml
date collective action for encouraging peaceful «t. men h
has been firmly established .hat there are no P"™“ d “f“
among nations' international controversies are i con of die
world community, which minds its own proper ma in-

intervene, in the troubled relation, of states to ensure the mam

te The e developmen. of the pacific settlement approach to peace
J“rie“ nd place, a process of ^“"ta n «
elaborating the means of promoting the discovery ? f

of suitable terms of settlement. This has meant the ««d°"
synthetic “third parties," the advance o[ the ° om .

to whatever disputes might arise f . .5 _ of tech-

munity’s pacificatory responsibilities, and the
niques for carrying out those resp°mi ',]|‘”' v olutionary process

Perhaps the most striking aspec ’ diplomacy,

has been the large-scale dese ’^matic bu.ine»
For better or for worse, much 01 t

“Article* 10-15 Rnftell, op c it., pp- 588 597,

■•See (he (ext <e*pecUlly Article 10) ?

“ Ibid , pp 610 612

" Article* 2 S3 38. 52. 99.

228 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

room, and what is required is the ventilation of disputes, per-
mitting the wholesome, commonsense rationality of public opin-
ion to have its effect. This approach to peace has increasing y
dominated the international scene ever since Wilson injected into
the League his antipathy for secret diplomacy.

A rather blurred conceptual line separates the problem ot
pacific settlement from the so-called problem of peaceful change.
The latter is a somewhat specialized concept, referring to the
problem of substituting amicable for forcible methods of re-
solving disputes which arise out of demands for alteration o t e
legally established status quo. Roughly, pacific settlement is con
cerned with disputes within the legal order, and peaceful change
with disputes about the legal order; the former seeks solutions in
or out of court, and the latter is more appropriately concern*
with decisions in or out of a legislature. These are meaning u
differences, in so far as the familiar constitutional distinction
between judicial and legislative functions is tenable, but for most
practical purposes, pacific settlement and peaceful change may c
taken as pans of a single international problem: that of seeming
the abandonment of force and the substitution of other means or
the resolution of all manner of conflicts among nations.

The development of the pacific settlement approach to peace
upon the theoretical bases which I have outlined has been, rs
of all, a process of establishing the fundamental proposition t at
the international community has a stake in the avoidance of war
which justifies it in insisting that states attempt to settle t eir
disputes by peaceful means, and in intruding into embittere
situations to promote that ideal. In the Hague Convention of 1
for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, the signatory
states agreed upon the desirability of attempting pacific sett e
ment, pledged themselves "as far as circumstances allow to 11,3 c
such efforts, and acknowledged the right of third parties to ma e
friendly interventions for the purpose of offering assistance m
reaching nonviolent solutions. 1 * The League Covenant went ur
ther, binding member states to submit dangerous differences o
instrumentalities of pacific settlement, imposing upon them a
definite period of abstention from fighting while the quest o^
solution took place, restricting their right to go to war after t e
” Articles 1-3. 9, 16. For citation ot the text, see note 3. preceding.

230

sword:

NTO PLOWSHARES

lias come to be transacted in drafty assembly halls rather than
stuffy consultation chambers, in rooms equipped with loud-
speakers rather than soundproofing. This trend, anticipated by the
development of the nineteenth-century conference system, has
reached its climax in the General Assembly of the United Na-
tions.

In ideal terms, the functions of the multilateral assemblage are
to dramatize the concern of the community with the quarrels
which arise among its members, to impress upon disputants the
gravity of their responsibility for maintaining peace and to enable
them to assess the general reaction to the positions which they
assume, to permit disinterested states to contribute their ideas for
possible solutions, and to initiate and supervise the operation of
more specialized procedures appropriate to the needs of parties
involved in particular disputes. In short, the big conference is at
its best in insisting upon, and providing facilities other than its
own platform for promotion of, pacific settlement.

Twentieth century international organization inherited a text-
book list of methods for bringing external assistance to states
whose own diplomatic resources were inadequate to compose
their disputes. These included such devices as good offices, inquiry,
mediation, and conciliation — methods which varied in the degree
to which they brought strangers into active participation in the
substantive discussion of disputed matters, but which were alike
in that they all involved the introduction of third parties for the
purpose of promoting the voluntary acceptance of politically
evolved terms of settlement.

From 1899 to the present, a major task of the builders of in-
ternational order has been that of perfecting these political tech-
niques and establishing institutional arrangements for their uti-
lization. The first Hague Conference hardly went beyond the
recommendations that contending states welcome such mediato-
rial assistance as might be proffered by neutral bystanders and
that they themselves initiate ad hoc commissions of inquiry to
facilitate their efforts at diplomatic settlement, although it also
defined the general rules for the operation of these pacificatory
devices. However, this action stimulated a flurry of bilateral
treaties designed to regularize resort to “third-par tyism” in re-

PEACEFUL SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES

231

solving controversies, and paved the way for the pacific settlement
emphasis of the League Covenant.

The League was deeply committed to the idea that interna-
tional machinery could and should play a significant role in
supplementing the political processes of traditional diplomacy.
It had no precise blueprint and evolved no rigid procedure for
pushing quarreling states to a settlement, but it operated prag-
matically, tailoring its methods to the peculiarities of particular
situations, and applying creative imagination to the development
of its conciliatory potential. This segment of the League’s opera-
tions fell primarily within the province of the Council, which
proceeded energetically to establish "for the first time in history
a regular system of mediation . . . [which] is something organic
and fundamentally changes the character of international rela-
tions . . . [and which] strikes out a new path toward the attain-
ment of peace, a path which had scarcely been thought of before
1919." ir The Council evolved a flexible mode of procedure, in-
volving stem insistence upon the suspension of acts and threats of
violence, careful avoidance of condemnatory finger-shaking which
might disrupt the delicate psychological fabric of conciliatory
moods, and judicious interweaving of public exhibitions and
private negotiations. It invented an important peace-keeping role
for its President, acting in the capacity of guardian of the global
interest. It undertook mediatorial functions as a body, or en-
trusted them to smaller committees or to individual delegates who
consented to act as rapporteurs for the Council in dealing with
specific cases. It developed to a considerable degree the institution
of the special commission, assigned to visit troubled areas in order
to supervise adherence to provisional arrangements for the suspen-
sion of hostilities and withdrawal of armed forces, to investigate
the factual basis of disturbances, to sponsor negotiations between
disputants, and to formulate proposals for solutions. On the whole,
the Council displayed admirable inventiveness and wisdom in de-
veloping the organizational structure and techniques required for
pacific settlement. 1 '

" T P. Con well -Evans, The League Council in

veroty Press. 1923), pp. 5 0.
“For an excellent analysis

of this development.

Action (London: Oxford Uni-
tee Onwell E>iik, op tit.

230 SWORDS INTO TLOW SHARES

has come lo be transacted in drafty assembly lulls rather than
study consultation chambers, in Tooms equipped with loud-
speakers rather than soundproofing. This trend, anticipated by the
development of the nmctccnth<entury conference system, has
reached its climax in the General Assembly of the United Na-
tions.

In ideal terms, the functions of the multilateral assemblage are
to dramati/e the concern of the community with the quarrels
which at isr among its members, to impress upon disputants the
gTavuy of their responsibility for maintaining j>eacc and to enable
them to assess the general reaction to the positions which they
assume, to permit disinterested states to contribute their ideas for
possible solutions, and to initiate and supervise the operation of
more specialized procedures appropriate to the needs of parties
involved in particular disputes. In short, the big conference is at
its best in insisting upon, and providing facilities other than its
own platform for promotion of. pacific settlement.

Twentieth-century international organization inherited a text-
book list of methods for bringing external assistance to states
whose own diplomatic resources were inadequate to compose
their disputes. These included such devices as good offices, inquiry*
mediation, and conciliation — methods which varied in the degree
to which they brought strangers into active participation in the
substantive discussion of disputed matters, but which were alike
in that they all involved the introduction of third parties for the
purpose of promoting the voluntary acceptance of politically
evolved terms of settlement.

Trom 1890 to the present, a major task of the builders of in-
ternational order has been that of perfecting these political tech-
niques and establishing institutional arrangements for their uti-
lization. The first Hague Conference hardly went beyond the
recommendations that contending states welcome such mediato-
rial assistance as might be proffered by neutral bystanders and
that they themselves initiate ad hoc commissions of inquiry to
facilitate their efforts at diplomatic settlement, although it also
defined the general rules for the operation of these pacificatory
devices. However, this action stimulated a flurry of bilateral
treaties designed to regularize resort to “third-party ism” in re-

PEACEFUL SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES 235

rions upon their sovereign freedom to resort to war and to reject
alternative methods of achieving solutions to controversies, and
the responsible international agencies have in considerable degree
exploited their opportunities for insisting upon universal ac-
ceptance of the principle that orderly procedures should be
invoked for the preservation of peaceful relations.

It is notable that in the Palestine Case, the General Assembly
attempted to establish the legal finality of its decision regarding
the terms of settlement, involving the partition of the disputed
area; it is equally notable that this legislative pretension was
flouted by the states immediately concerned, and that the Secu-
rity Council, under the influence of the United States, declined
to assert the view that it was competent to give executive backing
to the Assembly’s claim . 23 This episode illustrates one facet of the
basic legal situation, which is, in general terms, a situation char-
acterized by the obligation of states to try methods of pacific set-
tlement, and the freedom of states to choose which methods they
shall try, to avoid the judicial methods which would produce
legally obligatory decisions, and to reject the recommendations
for settlement which may be produced by political agencies. Dis-
putants are bound to honor the decisions of arbitrators or the
World Court, but free to prevent the rendering of those decisions;
they are free to repudiate the proposals of other pacific settlement
agencies, but bound to permit the development of those proposals.

The basic political situation is more favorable to pacific settle-
ment. The rise of international organization, occurring in con-
junction with increasing recognition of the grave consequences
of war, has contributed to the establishment of the normative
principle that international violence must be deferred until every
conceivable alternative possibility has been exhausted. Enormous
pressures to avoid resort to arms may be mobilized on occasion,
and it has become a normal expectation of international life
that collective agencies will step into a critical situation with
preventive measures and insistent proposals for nonviolent solu-
tions. War is still a last resort and ultimate possibility, but the
emphasis has shifted to the adjectives, “last” and “ultimate”; it is

» St* L Larry Leonard. "The United Nationa and Palatine." fnlemahonat Con-
ciliation. No < jt. October 1919, pp. 651 661; Lie, In the Came of Fence, pp.
IGI 168

231

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

The Results of Pacific Settlement Deoiccs

It is very difficult to render confident evaluations of the inter-
national services rendered by the pacific settlement agencies of
the League and the United Nations. The problem is complicated
by the relevance of a whole scries of unanswerable questions of
the historical what if variety. No one can say what global catas-
trophes might have occurred if certain controversies had not been
successfully dealt with, or what easy solutions might have been
reached even if elaborately institutionalized procedures had not

been available.

It is even more difficult to secure fair public appraisal of the
record of pacific settlement agencies. We have our historical ac-
counts of the wars that have taken place, but the list of wars that
have not occurred is not equally prominent in the public intellec-
tual domain, just as we see headlines about actual murders but
are not informed about the murders that do not happen. Every-
one knows that the League failed to settle several disputes that
paved the way for World War 11, but who remembers that Dur-
ing the first ten years of its life the Council . . . successfully
dealt with seventeen cases likely to lead to a rupture, and brought
to an immediate end hostilities which had broken out on seven or

eight occasions between Members of the League”? S1 There 1
general awareness of the failures of the United Nations, but less
consciousness of its pacificatory successes, and still less recognition
of the possibility that it has prevented some controversies from
growing big enough to bring it either blame for failing to solve

them or credit for success in so doing.

A major limiting factor of the organized pacific settlement sys-
tem is the essential principle of voluntarism regarding it* utiliza-
tion. The legal starting point is the basic proposition that no
State an, without its consent, be compelled to submit its disputes
cither to mediation or to arbitration, or to any other kind o
pacific settlement."” Nevertheless, under the Covenant and t ic
Charter, most states have gone far toward acceptance of restnc-

• Con writ F»*nt. op. cil . p. 2S».

•* RrpVr of ihr fCIJ lo irrjunt for advlwry opinion on Suru« of Far*
July 21, 1921. HutWon. op cil., I, 291.

CarfllL

FFACEFUL SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES 237

lion of demands for basic legal alterations, but states have neither
accepted the legal duty nor developed the political disposition to
utilize international agencies as the regular decision-makers in
such cases.

The road to war is paved with the documentary good inten-
tions of states, which have for a half-century exhibited far greater
enthusiasm for the formulation of treaties and designing of in-
stitutions of pacific settlement than for utilizing the arrangements
thus created. A number of commentators have recently pointed
with some cynicism to such facts as the virtually complete non-
utilization of the elaborate machinery for arbitration and con-
ciliation created by the United States in almost a hundred treaties
during the first three decades of this century. 25 While these critics
customarily overlook the significant fact that "Since 1920 approxi-
mately 50,000 cases have been decided by . . . [arbitration] tri-
bunals under agreements between many nations." M they never-
theless have a -valid point: the attempted institutionalization of
pacific settlement — and, more generally, the process of interna-
tional organization — have involved an inordinate amount of
wasted effort and stimulated 3n excessive amount of international
sclf-congratulation over paper achievements which were destined
never to be translated into reality.

To some extent, this tendency lias affected the two major world
organizations created in the first half of the twentieth century.
For various reasons, including the failure to achieve the universal
membership of the great powers and the widespread skepticism
of diplomats and military leaders concerning newfangled inter-
national processes, the I.cague did not function consistently as
the focal point of glolul diplomacy which it was intended to be.
Similarly, the United Nations has often been relegated to the
periphery of world affairs, as nations, tittering pious declarations
about the organization's being the very foundation of their for-
eign policies, have resorted to other acencles, to ad hoe inter-
national conferences, and to traditional diplomatic methods Tot
the solution of RTcat political issues.

236 imiDl iKia rlo»ilulH

no longer generally accepted a! a proper lirjt resort and routine
instrument for resolution of differences.

Despite all this, the nonutilization of agencies of pacific settle-
ment has remained a troublesome problem. Advocates of the
exclusive and invariable use of judicial means of settlement have
been persistently disappointed. The movement for compulsory
arbitration vvhuh arose late in the nineteenth century was trans-
formed after the First World War into a drive to establish the
compulsory jurisdiction of the World Court, but the latter version
has been hardly more successful than the former. The Court has
gained a considerable area of guaranteed jurisdiction through
ratifications of the Optional Clause and the insertion of appro-
priate provisions in multilateral treaties, and it has succeeded in
resolving a respectable number of contentious cases, but it has not
become a major instrument in the management of the conflicting
relationships of the family of nations. Its primary contribution has
been in developing the principles of international law, not »n
solving disputes or creating a reliable expectation among states
that orderly judicial processes will routinely uphold the rule o
law in the international community. Refusal of states to use t e
Court is still a major barrier to its full usefulness.

Thinkers who stress the vital importance of peaceful change m
international relations have similarly been frustrated. The lim-
ited potential of the League as an instrument of peaceful change
under Article 19 of the Covenant was never realized. The Genera

Assembly of the United Nations, which was endowed with a vague
competence to concern itself with issues of peaceful change y
Anicle 14 of the Charter, has been somewhat more active in t is
field. It legislated a new status for the former colonies, of Ita y.
on the basis of exceptional authority conferred upon it by t c
great powers,* 4 and it exercised something imperfectly resembling
legislative authority in the Palestine Case, as a result of Britain s
abdication of responsibility in its favor, but it lias encoitntere
serious opposition to its pretension to serve more generally as *
global parliamentary body for deciding upon changes in the lega
status quo, particularly in regard to the liquidation of colonia
situations. Adequate institutional means exist for the consi er

“See Benjamin Rlvlin, Italian Colonie$ (New York: Carnegie Endowment to'
International Peace, 1930).

PEACEFUL SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES 239

tional ancestors that states will not, in good faith, resort to it for
the full exploitation of the possibilities of pacific settlement of
the disputes that really count.

If the usefulness of international mediatorial agencies depends
upon the disposition of states to use them, it depends also upon
their willingness to be used. A persistent deficiency of such agen-
cies has been their reluctance to be concerned, especially in cases
involving demands for peaceful change. At least since 1871, when
Russia was rewarded for kicking over the traces fastened upon it
by the Parts Treaty of 185G by being relieved of the traces, 27 the
object lesson has been clear: states are likely to get what they
want if they raise a sufficient fuss, and unlikely to get it if they
fail to do so. On the whole, this rule applies today. Under the
Charter, the political agencies of the United Nations can work up
constitutionally legitimate excitement only about situations which
are deemed to involve a genuine threat to the peace. 28

Egypt learned this lesson the hard way in the United Nations.
Bringing its claim for revision of treaty relations with Britain to
the Security Council in 1947, it encountered the British argument
that the Council should take no action, on the ground that the
dispute did not endanger the peace. 20 While the Council did not
formally accept the British contention, it failed to adopt any reso-
lution regarding the case, and kept the Egyptian complaint as an
inactive item on its agenda. It required a proper rebellion by
Egypt against the treaties concerning Suez and the Sudan in 1951
to secure serious consideration of its demands by Britain, and
ultimately to precipitate agreement upon new arrangements.

This problem was again illustrated in the debate concerning
Tunisia and Morocco in the 1953 session of the General Assembly.
The Syrian representative, protesting against the tendency of the
Assembly to defer action in these cases, declared that "Popular
action in those countries was largely peaceful up to now. Evi-
dently only communism and violence can attract the attention of
the powerful in council and war." *» A French spokesman, arguing

"Of P E. GntbeU. Soeutj in the IteUiiom of Stem (Sew York: Jlar-

rourt. norr. UOJ). pp AS M

•Sec Aitkin I. II. 3$9*

•Sre WumIt Council OffieUl flenyrds, 2nJ Year. No. 70. p. t'CS; No. ij, pp,
I8TJ i STS, No 73. p 1954

• I’nilfd Sutont B ulltM, October 15. 1953. p. 547.

of “by-passing” as it affects the United Nations. We hear a great
deal of indignant criticism from persons who are wedded to the
doctrinaire view that nothing useful ought to be done unless it
can be done through the United Nations. This position fails to
take into account the fact that the Charter deliberately encour-
ages efforts to settle disputes outside the organization, and con-
templates not a centralized system of pacific settlement but a
central agency for upholding the principle of pacific settlement
and attempting to apply that principle when other instrumen-
talities have proven inadequate for the job. Indeed, the protest
has been made more than once in the United Nations that states
were guilty of burdening the organization prematurely with issues
that should have been subjected first to treatment by other means,
and it is at least arguable that the United Nations has been dam-
aged less by arbitrary by-passing than by the tendency of govern-
ments to say “let George do it,” calling upon the United Nations
to deal with situations in which they anticipate political disad-
vantage equally from meeting the requirements of achieving
peaceful settlement and from failing to achieve such settlement.
The reference to the United Nations of the problem of American
military prisoners detained in Red China, at the end of 1954, is
perhaps a case in point; the United Nations is in constant peril
of being used as a dumping ground for such hot political potatoes.
In many cases, the United Nations must breathe an institutional
sigh of relief and utter a fervent “more power to them” when
statesmen decide to undertake the settlement of disputes outside
its arena.

However, this does not dispose of the problem of by-passing.
It is true that there is great merit in the pragmatic doctrine that
disputes should be handled wherever they can best be settled, and
that it is unfortunate to force the United Nations to accept con-
troversies less to settle them than to assume the blame for pos-
sible failure to settle them, but it is also true that neither the
progressive development of international organization nor the
cause of world peace is promoted by the arbitrary withholding
from the United Nations of the opportunity to deal with the
disputes which most urgently require treatment by the techniques
of pacific settlement. The United Nations has no dearth of con-
ciliatory work to do, but it must share the anxiety of its institu-

241

PEACEFUL SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES

does not constitute a settlement. One can admit that the much-
disputed line between legal and political questions is purely a
subjective phenomenon of the minds and wills of the disputants,
but the conclusion still emerges that many issues will be as far
from settlement after a judge has said all that a judge can P r0 P'
erly say as they were before such pronouncement. Indeed, the
authoritative statement of legal rights and wrongs may even im-
pede settlement, by encouraging legally self-righteous rigidity on
one side in a controvetsy which can be settled only by political
compromise. The United Nations may not have achieved the
ideal balance between legal and political approaches to pacific
settlement, but it has been on sound ground in rejecting primary
reliance upon the device of adjudication.

Pacific settlement must be judged in qualitative terms. n '
final analysis, the value of this approach to peace will depend
upon what kind of solutions, rather than how many solutions,
produces. This insight is one of the strong points of the champion
of judicial settlement, whose insistence upon a major role to
judges is symbolic of concern for the element of justwe ,n ” „
national relation,. But justice is not the sole value which Reserves
attention, nor is it exclusively the product o who, pm-

fessional function is to uphold international legal rules "h
legitimize alike the just and the unjust aspects of the : status - quo.
The rule of law guarantees justice only if the law in P
justice, which is all too often not the ”, the
sphere. Hence, it is conceivable that the idea s of fan™*
decency may be better served by creative political P™«« th “
by processes which, in so far as they are J , nd

volve essentially the restatement of established leg B

d The settlements fostered by the political organs of : the UnUed
Nations are subject to evaluation not only interim
fortuity with abstract justice-which is tn itself an
difficult concept to apply in a world chatnctemed W > — ™
of moral consensus and a maximum of sttuational tm mplf«V ^
but also in terms of their clarity, their prospec s landing

their political realism, and their 1-c ® J^ o “* on

temptations of the United Nattons are »^|^ which is
no solution, to confuse a vague verba

SWORDS INTO PLOWS II ARTS

240

the other side of the case, asserted: "More and more numerous
among you are those who understand that recourse to violence
becomes a form of blackmail to obtain the ear of our Assembly.” *'
The dilemma is obvious: if dissatisfied states or peoples behave
themselves, their demands arc not considered urgent enough to
deserve attention, if they do not. they are accused of blackmail,
of trying to shoot their way onto the agenda — whereas, in fact,
they are taking what seems to be the only course that leads to
serious consideration of their grievances. To insist upon rebel-
liousness as a prerequisite for satisfaction of demands is a poor
way to bring tip children or to run a peaceful change system; the
United Nations would do well to make itself useful, as a matter
of principle, to disgruntled states which do not press their de-
mands in such fashion as to engender a threat to the peace.

When everything has been said atom the noniuiliration of pa-
cific settlement agenucs the fact remains that since 1920 the
world has been equipped with genera! political organizations
which have been put to ronstant use and have achieved consid-
erable success in the field of pacific settlement. However, the rec-
ord indicates that the concept of success in pacific settlement must
be interpreted in relative terms.

The United Nations lias clearly contributed little to establish-
ing die sanctity of the principle of judicial decision. Its political
organs have been little inclined to emphasize the legal approach
to accommodation, a tendency which I think is sound even though
it may not have been motivated by the right reasons. In at least
one contentious case, the World Court has made it clear that ju'
dicial settlement may be virtually useless because of deficiencies
in the law which the Court must apply. Ruling on the Asylum
Case involving Colombia and Peril, the tribunal could do little
more than state the indecisive conclusions dictated by the relevant
international law, and advise the parties that they must look to
political processes for a means of escape from the impasse in which
they found themselves.” More generally, the judicial approach is
limited by the fact that, given the fundamental nature of the
major disputes that arise in international relations, a judgment

“/fcirf., p 319. . ,

“For the excerpletl lext of this judgment, fee Am eriean Journal of Internationa
Law, January 1931. pp. 179 198. and October 1931, pp. 781-788.

243

PEACEFUL SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES
the realistic ideal may be not to achieve the permanent settlement
oE a dispute, hut to petsuade the parties to settle down perma-
nently with the dispute. The agendas ol the Security Council and
the General Assembly are liberally sprinkled with items that are
beginning to seem like permanent fixtures, quarrels which the
United Nations has managed to subject to peaceEul perpetuation
rather than peaceEul settlement. This is not a cynical comment;
many o£ lile's problems are meant to be lived with rather than
solved, and the urge to have a showdown, to settle the matter one
way or the other, is often an unwise impulse in both personal and

international affairs. . . .. ■

The United Nations has operated on the assumption hat it is
useiul to keep currently insoluble problems in thu ptsblie inter-
national eye, attempting to extend indefinite y t e ^ va
provisional pacificatory measures, maintaining surveillance to
tect and offset any tendency toward disintegration
arrangements, and recurrently testing the possibilities of moving
on to definitive settlement. One oE the most valuabl e hmqu«
which the organisation ha, stumbled upon is

missions o£ investigation, conciliation, an supe m bo-

o. indefinitely in the field, accomplishing lit. le ““P' me peace
firing the determination oE the Unirad "£"*£££
must not be broken, standing ready 10 in orm th p
o£ changes in the situation, and being available - pa]H [ ine
ties i£ a conciliatory mood should develop, as expressed

are classic examples oE the application of the philosop y P
by Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., in these terms:

I see some thing, .ha, you caimo, doft

you can, but you can’t do it now, ^a 1 lh ^ pettifog,

to son of spin it out and drag i 8 , . , : much

and that way the, don’t shoo, each other, and .ha,
clear gain. 3 ® _

This practice raises some interesung _quesuonsjega ^8 ^

problem of timing in the tactics o P* a slowdown is in
assumption that the enforced postpone subjected to the

itself conducive to pacific settlement as ... resu it than
critical observation that heating up is a m

"Charier Review Hearing, P«t 1. P 59.

245

PEACEFUL SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES

settlements in cases where a happier result might reasonably have
been expected. It is doubtful that the ideal development o£ pa-
cific settlement techniques has been achieved.

The technical deficiencies of United Nations pacificatory action
are intimately related to the political trends which dominate the
organization. Its inadequacies may be in some degree traceable
to its politically determined deviations from the norm of univer-
sality: certainly, it has a better chance to exert pacific influence
upon members than upon outside states. The limited applica-
bility of the great power veto to pacific settlement action in the
Security Council is something of a handicap, although the trans-
ferability of problems to the Assembly and the inherent require-
ment of consent of the parties for successful pacific settlement sug-
gest that the importance of the veto in this respect is not over-
whelming. What damages the Security Council is not so much
the technical fact of the veto as the political fact that its major
members are so deeply involved in conflict that they
the Council from an organ of conciliation into an arena for thei
own mutual antagonisms. All too often, Security ounci
eration of a case

develops into an argument between the member, of the Ctamfland
the argument 1, conducted in a way that give, mo. re amnnon »
the difference, belweeu members of the Council ihan
ences between the parties so the dispute. In every cam u . to d e
the Council discussion ha. eventually teached a pomt wh e .he
is little hope of composing the dispute or adjusting dm^nat
without first composing the difference, of Council members.

A major difficulty in the Genera.
enc, of government, to itnn« i|» b i ic debate and

mtttees and the P 1 '“'J M b °^ aldii p ut es.Thisisvir.uallyeq„iv-

formalvo..ngupon.nternauo ^ ^

mem, forTmLivc international conference is about - ™PP™‘
ptiate a place and a could be devised. In so

.He concept ol the Assemb.y a, a

Sefunf , (Melbourne. Australia: F. W. Cheshire.
"Paul Hajluck, Workshop of Sccun y \

1918). p. W.

PEACEFUL SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES 245

settlements in cases where a happier result might reasonably have
been expected. It is doubtful that the ideal development of pa-
cific settlement techniques has been achieved.

The technical deficiencies o£ United Nations pacificatory action
are intimately related to the political trends which dominate the
organization. Its inadequacies may be in some degree traceable
to its politically determined deviations from the norm of univer-
sality; certainly, it has a better chance to exert pacific influence
upon members than upon outside states. The limited applica-
bility of the great power veto to pacific settlement action in the
Security Council is something of a handicap, although the trans-
ferability of problems to the Assembly and the inherent require-
ment of consent of the parties for successful pacific settlement sug-
gest that the importance of the veto in this respect is not over-
whelming. What damages the Security C ounril is not so much
the technical fact of the veto as the political fact that its major
members are so deeply involved in conflict that they transform
the Council from an organ of conciliation into an arena for their
own mutual antagonisms. All too often, Security Council consid-
eration of a case

develops into an argument between the members of the Council and
the argument is conducted in a way that gives more attention to
the differences between members of the Council than to the differ-
ences between the parties to the dispute. In every case up to date
the Council discussion has eventually reached a point where there
is little hope of composing the dispute or adjusting the situation
without first composing the differences of Council members.**

A major difficulty in the General Assembly has been the tend-
ency of governments to insist upon using the sixty-member com-
mittees and the plenary body for full-scale public debate and
formal voting upon international disputes. This is virtually equiv-
alent to saying that they reject the whole idea of pacific settle-
mem. for a massive international conference is about as inap pro _
priatc a place and a general counting of votes as unpromising a
method of achieving pacific settlement as could be devised. I n w
far as states have renounced the concept of the Assembly 3J a
"fail! llasluck. Kothhop ef Snunt, <SM bourne. AuunJu: F- W. CJ,^

1 * 118 ). p pi

creator and sponsor o£ specialized bodies and intimate procedures
for mediation, and forced it into the role of loud-speaker for their
contentions and registrar of their political victories, they have
undermined its usefulness as an instrument of pacific settlement.
To a very large extent, the Assembly has become a battlefield
rather than a peace conference.

This tendency is well illustrated by the case of India’s dispute
with South Africa over treatment of the Indian minority in the
latter country. It has become a hardy perennial of the Assembly s
agenda, and was no nearer solution in 1955 than when it was
introduced in 1946. The record in this case is dominated by the
fact that India brought its problem to the United Nations not to
achieve a settlement but to score a victory; it invoked not the
conciliatory skill of the organization but its denunciatory ca-
pacity.”

The problem of collective accusation, of international finger-
shaking, is a very serious one for the business of pacific settlement.
There are no doubt occasions when condemnation of guilty P ar '
ties by the United Nations is morally justified, and when it may
serve a useful purpose; but it is doubtful if such action can or 1 -
narily serve the purpose of pacific settlement. Indeed, most states
recognize this fact except when they are obsessed with the hope
of securing political triumphs in cases involving themselves. T he
same Indian Government demanded that the United Nations con
demn South Africa in the case just cited and Pakistan in the
Kashmir case, and deplored the stigmatization of Red China as
an aggressor in Korea on the ground that this action would im
pede the achievement of pacific settlement; the same American
Government demanded the condemnation of Red China and op
posed the assignment of guilt in the Kashmir case on the groun
that this action might prejudice the possibility of pacific settle-
ment. The issue poses a real dilemma for the United Nations,
how to retain its capacity as an instrument of pacific settlement,
without sacrificing its capacity for distinguishing between t »e
more and less guilty parties in the troubled situations with wine t
it deals.

The problem of publicity is an equally delicate one for present-

*-Inu L. Claude, Jr„ National Minorities • An International Problem (Cam-
bridge' Harvard University Press, 1955). pp- 195 201.

PEACEFUL SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES

day agencies of peaceful accommodation. In contrast to the tra-
ditional assumption that the opening of diplomatic windows
would admit the moderating breezes of pop.dar rauonaUty de;
cency, and peace-mindedness, there ts considerable evidence that
the publicization of diplomacy has the effect of tempting-or
forcing— negotiators to make angry speeches rather than to nego-
tiate. The era of secret diplomacy had its seamy side, but he
contemporary revolt against open diplomacy represents less the
nostalgfa of^ynical diplomats for the days of nefarious scheming
than the wistfulness of earnest statesmen for an opportunity to
seek compromises without exciting clamorous demands to force
surrenders instead. As Quincy Wright has written:

Parliaments are usually more nationalistic and belligerent than
executives and people than parliaments, because they are less
executives, P £ h le want peace, that want is

abstract and leM^nfluendal than^r imis.enee that tbe nation
shall be recognized, secure, and victorious.

Given this kind of situation, the function of pacific settlement

by providing a coly nook tor negotiation, sheltered from the gusts
uy proviaing ' , . nro vidin" mediators to shoulder the

responsibility making on their own initiative."

^management of international allairs in the mid-rwemieth
i ne ma 0 intimate diplomacy and the public proc-

century requit d , United Nations provides

esses of ^S^ctivity. If the world organization

opportunities bo ^ u , b „ce between privacy and publicity
tends to Cut Conducive lo successful promotion of pacific

'"'f T lhr”ul.r f 'om"bc fact .Hat the cl, nice 1, con, tolled
settlement, t intent upon gaining political victories for

by national ’ ,al ” , n international statesmen dedicated to

tlic'fidlest'^xpl'oitaiion of the pacifying possibilities ofiered by in-
temational organisation.

• Frobttmi or Un >*

^o'raVnt STr l ;J. ,™. rr

248

SWORDS INTO PLI

However, when all is said and done, the crucial limitation of
pacific settlement as an approach to peace is discoverable in the
inadequacy and inaccuracy of its original assumptions. War is not
simply a dispute-settling mechanism adopted because angry men
are too excited and proud to seek another way out, or because
scheming militarists monopolize the decision-making process, or
because the techniques of the international mediation service arc
insufficiently developed. The basic analysis of war which I de-
scribed at the beginning of this chapter is too simple, and the
therapeutic doctrines of pacific settlement rely upon excessively
rationalistic assumptions concerning the nature of man as a mem-
ber of a multistate society.

The hard fact of international relations is that "disputes are
not always raised for the sole purpose of being settled.” 40 The
kind of war which challenges most seriously the survival instinct
of modern man is not the war which occurs in default of the suc-
cessful application of skilled techniques of pacific settlement, but
the war which represents a deliberate political design, a calculated
assault upon the foundations of the existing international order.
The issue between those who adopt and those who oppose such
plans is not susceptible of formulation in the terms of disputes
which can be submitted to peaceful resolution. Their disputes are
minor symptoms of a fundamental hostility which is not definable
as the sum of the disputes or removable by the solution of the
disputes.

The experience of the great international organizations of this
century does not reveal the incapacity of collective agencies for
the settlement of disputes, but rather the inadequacy of the settle-
ment of disputes as a means to world peace. The crucial antago-
nisms which brought about World War II and those which
threaten the renewed disruption of world order were not and are
not matters capable of being dealt with by a transfusion of calm
rationality, or by injection of level-headedness and deliberateness
into the situation; they were and are eruptions of the deep-seate
malignancy of the human situation, outcroppings of forces, mani-
festations of drives, and symptoms of irrationalities of power poli-
tics which are essentially beyond the range of pacific settlement
techniques. The lesson of the twentieth century is not so much

“ Ibid., p. 535.

249

PEACEFUL SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES
that the world needs better arrangements and devices for pacific
settlement, but that pacific settlement-however well institution-
alized— is not a sufficient remedy for what ails the modern world.

This analysis leaves much useful work to be done by pacific
settlement agencies. We need, and we have largely achieved. the
development of instrumentalities capable of insisting upon and
assisting in the solution of controversies which threaten to pro-
duce unnecessary, unwilled, and essentially avoidable wars, thus
narrowing down the danger of war to coldly calculated aggressive
designs. But it is necessary to recognize the limitations of this
approach; for dealing with the gravest threats to world peace and
order, "chairs and tables are not enough,”*' nor are Assembly
debates. Security Council resolutions, rapporteurs, ““°" s
investigation and conciliation, or United Nations mediators.

SUGGESTED READINGS

cI^X.^Lgue Council in Ac, ion. London; Oxford
University Press, 1929.

Garcfa-Granados. Jorge, The Birth o, M New York: Knoph 949.
Hyde, James N„ “Peaceful Settlement.” Interna, tonal Conciliation,
No. 444, October 1948.

Jackson, Elmore. Meeting o, Mind,. New York: McGtaw-HtH, 19 2.
Lissitzyn, Oliver J„ The International Court o. Jinnee, New York.

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1951.

Mohn. Paul, “Problems of Truce Supervision,” intrmationa, Concilia,
turn, No. 478, February 195-

Pacific Settlement of Charter', Committee on

Washington: Government Printing Office. 19o4.

The C. £ .e - ™

Collective Security as an
Approach to Peace

If the movement for international organization in the twentieth
century can be said to have a preoccupation, a dominant purpose,
a supreme ideal, it is clear that the achievement of collective secu-
rity answers that description. Other objectives have figured promi-
nently in the development of international organization, but the
hope of establishing a successful collective security system has
been the primary motivating force behind die organizational en-
terprises of our time. Security represents the end; collective
defines the nature of the means; system denotes the institutional
component of the effort to make the means serve the end. It is
doubtful whether international organization can properly be eval-
uated exclusively in terms of its success or failure in realizing this
ideal, but it is certain that this criterion applies in judging the
extent to which the conscious intentions of its creative spirits have
been satisfied. ,

While collective security has been the central concern of the
builders of international agencies, it has not been regarded as an
exclusivistic approach to peace. It has, for instance, been inti-
mately related to pacific settlement. Collective security is necessary
because pacific settlement cannot always succeed; it is feasible, if
at all, only because pacific settlement succeeds most of the time,
and its existence increases the probability that pacific settlement

250

COLLECTIVE SECURITY AS AN APPROACH TO PEACE 251

will succeed more of the time. Hence, the creators of the League
and the United Nations have sought to combine the techniques
of moral inducement and coercive threat for the preservation of
peace.

Collective security has generally been regarded as a halfway
house between the terminal points of international anarchy and
world government. Given the assumption that the former has be-
come intolerable and the latter remains, at least for the fore-
seeable future, unattainable, collective security is conceived as an
alternative, far enough from anarchy to be useful and far enough
from world government to be feasible. Advocates of collective se-
curity have differed as to whether it should be envisaged as a tem-
porary expedient, contributing to the ultimate possibility of world
government, or a permanent solution of the problem of order,
eliminating the ultimate necessity of world government. But,
regardless of their differing expectations concerning the probabil-
ity that collective security will yield ideal results, they have been
united in the belief that its requirements are less revolutionary
than those posed by world government, and that it is therefore
within the realm of possibility in an age dominated by the basic
values of a multistate system.

It should be noted in the beginning that collective security is
a specialized concept, a technical term in the vocabulary of inter-
national relations. Its definition may be approached by the process
of elimination: it represents the means for achieving national
security and world order which remain when security through
isolation is discarded as an anachronism, security through self-help
is abandoned as a practical impossibility, security through alliance
is renounced as a snare and a delusion, and security through world
government is brushed aside as a dream irrelevant to reality. The
concept of collective security may be stated in deceptively simple
terms: it is the principle that, in the relations of states, everyone
is his brother’s keeper; it is an international translation of the
slogan, “one for all and all for one”; 1 it is the proposition that
Kg gnnam: '<aeb 'atianAdi *t«t xh hxnvt Yjj- mty tikhoti Kg 'JnrSi
nation will be met by the combined force of all other nations.

Emphasis upon the specific character of collective security is

1 [hni J Morgen lhau. Polities Among Nations (1st e<i ; New York: Knopf, 1949).
p. 331.

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

particularly essential because in recent years the term has been
so loosely used that it has virtually lost its original meaning. The
kind of semantic debasement which collective security has under-
gone cannot be prevented, and it may be argued that it should
not be resented, in accordance with the precept of tolerance that
every man has as good a right as any other to use whatever words
he pleases to express whatever meaning he wants to convey. Yet,
just as a considerable medical literature would be invalidated if
doctois fell into the habit of using the word "penicillin” for what
has previously been called "insulin,” a substantial body of inter-
national thought is confused by the tendency to use "collective
security” to refer to concepts alien to its original meaning.

The term, collective security, is now being generally applied to
arrangements of virtually any sort which involve the probability
of joint military action in a crisis by two or more states. Thus, it
has come to be a synonym, used for euphemistic purposes, for the
policy of creating alliances designed to function in a balance of
power system. For instance, an editorial in the New York Times
interpreted the development of NATO as both a necessary return
to the system of balance of power and a symbolic recognition by
Western nations "that their only salvation lies in standing to-
gether in a system of collective security.”* Senator McMahon
defined collective security as "the attempt to weld together a mil-
itary alliance to keep the peace such as we have attempted to do
in the North Atlantic Pact,”* and General Omar Bradley de-
scribed that treaty as "our collective-security alliance." 4 An offi-
cial American publication in 1952 asserted that a treaty of alli-
ance, signed by the United States, Australia, and New Zealand,
"pledges these three nations to a program of collective security.” *

Such statements ignore the fact that collective security was orig-
inally set out not only as something different from an alliance
system, but as a consciously contrived substitute for such a system,
based upon the supposition that the game of balance of power

•January 6. 1951.

• Military Situation in the Far East , Hearings before the Committee on Armed
Services and the Committee on Foreign Re tat ions. United States Senate, 82nd Con-
gress, 1st Session (Washington: Government Printing Office. 1951), Part t, p- 87.

* United States News and World Report, March 28, 1952, p. 84.

•Our foreign Policy: 19S2, Department of State Publication 4403, General For-
eign Policy Series 56 (Washington: Government Printing Office. 1952). p. 59.

COLLECTIVE SECURITY AS A N AEPROACH TO PEACE 253

was, a, Wilson put it, "forever discredited." « Wilson, . the duet
spokesman for the concept of collective security as hc undamen
, Id principle of tl.e League of Nat, on., made ■t ahsolutely c ea.
that the new concept was incompatible with, and anuthet tAl a
a nolicy of alliances’ One can identify alliances with collective

if he pleases, hut if he does, he cannot honestly pretend

to be talking about the same kind of system that has been du
cussed for four decades and adopted as the idea ]

world organizations under the name of collective secunty.

The predilection of the United States for decorating alh
ances with the attractive terminology of collective J
explained, probably inadvertently, by an Amencan spokeunan in
the Firs. Committee of the General Assembly, on January 2 .195-
Discussing the issue of the relationship between
lactic anS Rio (Inter-American) treaties and he td « Act code
live security, Benjamin V. Cohen admitted tha *“£
mems might conceivably

employing force or the thr “ of . This remark clearly

row purposes inconsistent with the . ,,-i an J su biec-

implies that the United Su.es “**"££!£ ‘approves

tive definition of collective reflec ® r motives and

of a treaty of alliance, believing tl Sta £ describes it as

promises results acceptable to th United States dis-

a segment of a collective ‘““"Ounce's 1. a! .“mere military
approves of such a treaty « t ^ n bTes"ing of Wilsonian idealism,
alliance." To put it bluntly. co „ ective security, is

which breathed the hope of curse 0 £ Wilsonian

invoked upon American al l * nc ’ . j ch "have been the pro-

prejudice against special comjnat and jons that

r=^faS scientific understanding of the con-

cept of collective security. GjOT H „„i„u. D, e , 1 cl

•Address to Congress, February H. '^’!;, C ‘“p r j nt j n g Office, 1940), I. 424.

•Department S » » «*“

•See the citation from Wiiso ,
teres! , p. 21 .

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

254

Another example o! the loose usage of the term may be found
in the public expressions of President Eisenhower. In June 1952,
the future President declared at a press conference:

I believe we should not commit ourselves to any geographical line
or tie ourselves down any other way. I do not believe we should
handcuff ourselves with pre-action statements. We should be ready
to act in oui own interests when the time comes and in accordance
with our own self-interest, enlightened self-interest with respect to
the free world 10

This was a classic statement of the flat rejection of the funda-
mental principle of collective security. Yet, a few days later, Eisen-
hower warned against the dire result of a possible turn toward
isolationism, and asserted: "But it will not happen if we firmly
maintain a high order of collective security." 11 As chief executive,
Eisenhower embraced collective security wholeheartedly, saying
on June 10, 1953, that "there is no free nation too humble to be
forgotten ... all free nations must stand together, or they shall
fall separately.” '* However, the same newspaper which reported
that speech also carried a dispatch attributing to the Secretary of
Defense the view that no commitment could be made in advance
as to whether the United States would join in opposing a Com-
munist assault at some point, such as Indo-China, along the con-
tainment perimeter. This represented no disunity in the Adminis-
tration; it reflected the settled American policy of accepting the
terminology of collective security and rejecting the substantive
meaning of collective security.

Collective security has gone the way of most other ideal con-
cepts; respectable people insist upon believing in it, but they
also insist upon retaining beliefs which are incompatible with tt
and rejecting beliefs which are fundamental to it. In these cir-
cumstances, the problem of evaluating the principle of collective
security as an approach to peace requires especial care.

This problem is complicated not only by the loose and incon-
sistent usage of the term, but also by the warmth of the friendly
and hostile emotions which have been aroused by the concept
of collective security. No approach to peace espoused by inter-

" -V™ Eor* Timn. June 6, 1952.

•> Ibid., June 24. 1952.
a tbid, June U. 1933.

OLLECTIVE SECU!

ITY AS AN APPROA

national organization has produce, 1 more e.agBeratdpmneor
more fervid denunciation. A round analyse

ized by equal wariness against ready acceptance of the ot

that collective security is an infallible formula for world order
that it is a concept which has been conclusively discredited.

The Theory of Collective Security

Collective security depends less heavily than pacific settlement
upon the precise accuracy of a set of assumptions about the nature
and cause; of war. By the same token. ,t purports to be
to a wider variety of belligerent situauons. astnmmg m* aU
wars arise from the same type of causation. It is should

line of defense against the wars wh.ch pacific 1 ih ™“

hut does not prevent, and a supplememary defense on the flank

SrSSSrSFSr;

wars are likely to occur and that they ? u S m £ f delib „ ate
conflicts may he the fruit of “"o'.e.de diiputes effect, of
planning; they may represent or calcu i ate d means to

undefinably broad situations o Y» ^ , aunched b y

realize ambitious designs of conq or the democratic

the irresponsible dictate » thc chan ,pi„ns of collec-

will of a chauvinistic people S ronviction that most

live security have frequency ""i^tf^rfUative. The
wars are likely to stem from security is not invalidated

point is that the theoiy of CO ai<jnal fa xposa. and initia-

by the discovery that the ca *

tory mechanisms of war are van ' * th e problem of war is

However, the basic assumption ^ security i,

more precise in certain imp , oolicv in the sense that

a specialized instrument of «“ »<
it is intended only to forests -anisms for the whole body

force, not to provide enforcement mechanism ^ ^ q{
of international law; it a$s ’’ llTje * r tbe matter is the restraint
world order is concerned, t e ie

256

SWORDS INTO PLOWSIIAUrS

of military action rather than the guarantee of respect for all legal
obligation* Moreover, it assumes that this ideal may be real! red.
or at least approximated, by a reformation of international policy,
without the institution of a revolution in the structure of the in*

ternatiotul ssstem

To some degree, collective security shares with pacific settle-
ment tin belief tli3t governments, or the peoples svho may be in
a position to influence their governments, arc amenable to moral
ap]K.iIs against the misuse of force, and it may also be described
as a rationalistic, approach to peace. But the rational appeal di-
rected h) collective security to potential belligerents is not so
much a suggestion of a decent and sensible alternative to violence,

which characterizes pacific settlement, as a threat of dire conse-
quences if the warning against violence is imprudently ignored.
The stock in trade of pacific settlement is investigation, concilia-
tion, arbitration, and the like — equipment for inducing rational
decision to follow a morally respectable course; the stock in trade
of collerme security is diplomatic, economic, and military sanc-
tions— equipment for inducing rational decision to avoid threat-
ened damage to the national self-interest. Pacific settlement as-
sumes, at least for tactical purposes, the moral ambiguity of a
situation of conflict; avoiding an initial judgment on the mora
merits of the positions held by disputants, it applies pressure
equally to the tsvo parties to adopt positive moral attitudes con-
ducive to an agreed solution. Collective security, on the other
hand, assumes the moral clarity of a situation, the assignability
of guilt for a threat to or breach of the peace; starting by tagging
one state as the culpable party, it then discards primary concern
with the factor of international morality in favor of the principle
of power. Whereas pacific settlement fails if it proves impossib e
to make states rationally calm enough to behasc morally, collec-
tive security falls down if either of two assumptions proves in-
valid: that blame can be confidently assessed for tnteroationa
ruses, and that states are rationally calculating enough to bchase

prudently.

Collective security may lie described as Testing upon the propo-
sition that war can lie prevented by tbe deterrent effect of oser
whelming power upon states which are too rational to invite cer-
tain defeat. In this respect, it is fundamentally similar 10 * 13

COLLECTIVE SECCR.TV *S * * T ° P ' ‘ ' “ ' ' ^

ance of power system M*l »e Ota.
we shall see, collective secuit y 1^ ^ (he wilsonlan

are tts dist.ngmsh.n 0 mar . ° diRerent trom the system

claim that collective security is basically

ot policy which it was exphcit y es^gne^ ma y seem

However simple the collect h J tha t it assu mes the sat-

upon superficial acquaintance. ncm ork ol requirements,

isfaction of an extraordinarily “mPle objective

The first group of prc™!^ the responsibih

character, related to the gen ^ may be characterized

ities of collective security; the ** related to the suitability

as a category of objective requi * ,j t * vc security,

of the global situation to * e °F^Ue cl h,e Security. In contrast to
Subjective Requirements of j to ev oke peaceful

pacific settlement. " h ^“ “^ifectiw security depends upon
attitudes from quarreling st . wor)d pea ce by the great

a positive commitment to th premise of the

„,L of states. Its M £ £££ in the think-

"indivisibility of peace sho ,>,pec,ive security rests upon

ing of governments and P P 1 • ^ g0VOTme nts and peoples
the assumption that it is tru . h tbe fabric ot human

can be expected to act upon Jhe^ ^ _ hrcach anywhere

society has become so bo* Unchecked aggression in one

threatens disintegration e JT™ empower its perpetrator to

direction emboldens and P re abst ractly. successful use

penetrate in other directions, ° ■ the undermining

of lawless force in one ‘u rituations. The geo-

of respect for the principle o ^ Levant: Kant’s prophetic
graphical remoteness of aggress haJ bee „ everywhere

insight that "The intercourse ■ • • the caIth . has now ex-

steadily increasing between th righ , one part o[ the

tended so enormously ^ univma Uy acknowledged. The

world is felt all over it, transformation that was exem-

world’s thinking must undergo k cham beilain, when he

plified by British Prime Mini ^ 1Q38i -How horrible, fan.
switched from sighing, >n 1 e sbou ld be digging trenches and
tastic, incredible it is th f' of a qua rrel in a far-away co un .
trying on gas-masks here, e
>* Perpetual Peace, p- **•

258

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

try between people of whom we know nothing,” to asserting, one
year later, that "If, in spite of all, we find ourselves forced to
embark upon a struggle . , . we shall not be fighting for the
political future of a far-away city in a foreign land; we shall be
fighting fin the preservation of those principles, the destruction
of wlmh would involve the destruction of all possibility of peace
and sennits loi the peoples of the world." 14 Collective security
requires 1 ejection of the isolationist ideal of localizing wars, in
terms of both its possibility and its desirability, and recommends
to all the classic advice proffered by Alfred Nemours, the repre-
sentative of Haiti, in the League debate concerning Italian aggres-
sion against Ethiopia: "Great or small, strong or weak, near or
far, white or coloured, let us never forget that one day we may
be somebody's Ethiopia.” **

In requiring conviction of the indivisibility of peace, collective
security demands what is essentially a factual agreement; it then
imposes a related normative requirement: loyalty to the world
community. The system will work, only if the peoples of the world
identify their particular interests so closely with the general in-
terest of mankind that they go beyond mere recognition of inter-
dependence to a feeling of involvement in the destiny of all na-
tions. The responsibilities of participation in a collective security
system are too onerous to be borne by any but a people actuated
by genuine sympathy for any and all victims of aggression, and
loyalty to the values of a global system of law and order. The
operation of a collective security system must always be precarious
unless the conviction that what is good for world peace is neces-
sarily good for the nation is deeply engrained in governments and
peoples.

The leaders of nations and their constituents must be prepared
to subordinate to the requirements of the collective security sys-
tem their apparent and immediate national interest — to incur
economic loss and run the risk of war, even in situations when
the national interest does not seem to be involved, or when tins
policy seems to conflict with the national interest or to undermine
established national policies. This means that states must re-
lied in Alan Bullotk, Hitler • A Study in Tyranny (New York: Harper. 193$).
p 199.

“CJt«3 Jn Walter*, A Hatory of the League of Xationt, 11. M.

COLLECTIVE SECURITY AS AN APPROACH TO PEACE 259
nounce both pacifism and the right to use war as an instrument
of national policy, while standing ready to resort to force for the
fulfillment of their international obligations. As Arnold J. Toyn-
bee has put it: "We have got to give up war for all the purposes
for which sovereign communities have fought since war has been
in existence, but we have still got to be willing to accept the risks
and the losses of war for a purpose for which hitherto people have
never thought of fighting.” 18 It means that states must abandon
as illusions any convictions they may have traditionally held that
they are peculiarly safe against aggression, overcome the tempta-
tion to regard any specific conflict as immaterial to or even favor-
able to their interests, and dedicate themselves to the performance
of duties which may upset the equilibrium of their national life
and disrupt relationships which they have laboriously constructed.
All this theoretically takes place within a system which assumes
the maintenance of the basic multistate character of international
society, and demands not that national loyalties be abandoned,
but that they merely be harmonized by the enlightened concep-
tion that national interests are identifiable with the global inter-
est. What it really requires is that a state adopt this conception
once and for all, and thereafter act on the assumption that it is
valid, despite contrary appearances that may arise from time to
time.

Collective security is a design for providing the certainty of
collective action to frustrate aggression — for giving to the poten-
tial victim the reassuring knowledge, and conveying to the po-
tential law-breaker the deterring conviction, that the resources of
the community will be mobilized against any abuse of national
power. This ideal permits no ifs or buts. If it merely encourages
states to hope for collective support in case they are victims of
attack, it must fail to stimulate the revisions of state behavior at
which it aims and upon which its ultimate success depends; if the
hope which it encourages should prove illusory, it stands con-
victed of contributing to the downfall of states whose security it
purported to safeguard. If it merely warns potential aggmsors

"Royal Institute of International Affairs. The Future of the League of Xetions,
p H Cf Werner Levi. Fundamentals of H'orftf Organiiation {Minneapolis: Unt-
versify of Minnesota Press, 1950), p- T>\ Mot^enthau, Politics Among Kationt, p.
S3J.

COLLECTIVE SECURITY AS AN APPROACH TO PEACE
of policy; "To all intent, and purpose,

of it, military potential is the most sensitive So j vious to

sovereignty, and that I”' r J st '“ution:.l democracies, it

foreign decision or control F decisions „ hic h is likely

implies a transfer of power to roa distribution of govern-

to collide with established concepts i of * q£ n a tio nal po l-

mental functions and powers, and g , t : c principle

icy which is difficult to reconcilc wtth the demoaal.c pn™.

that the people have an malienab * "SJ> of ma jority

through the continuous operation , a ts to follow

rule. It requires democratic statesmen, a » r ^ u Stances,

policies which their people may not app mQSt c hcrished vir-
and, as statesmen, to abjure the exercis pmD irical wisdom by
toe of statesmanship, that

making sound decisions . n the *£<£££' j, required to he-
of a given situation. Thus, me go F people want, the

tray the democratic ideal of doing ' vote-getting instincts,

shrewd politician is required to vio a j book in a

and ihewise statesman is -hat govern-

manner befitting an automaton. '' , te d degree of con-

ments and peoples must develop an P . ers> f or the dis-

fidence in the judgment and goo wt competence of

crettonary authority which i, ^"TlXd h pT added to
the democratic majority and the n«.onaUead«r.t. p^
that of an international organizatm ‘ whose policy

transferred to unidentifiab e ssion against themselves,

may be so obtuse that they pro “ I t h e y deliberately
and those whose policy may be so cyn.cnl J

resort to aggression. mllective security system neces-

The essential commitmen so f(jr the sta uis quo. Collec-

sitate the willingness of nat, ° ns atte m P t to perpetuate an exist-
tive security is not inherent y com £ atible w ith a system of
ing state of affairs: 1S . ■ £ act absolutely necessary

peaceful change, and such a sys e d Q f attitudes

L producing the kind o «— ££$ id „, of collective
toward * -££££ given moment, the function

secutnyistobete afu t^i— ~-»

t:;.r trsJ ■« - »=■

SWORDS INTO PLOWS'

It F S

itiat iluy may encounter concerted resistance, it fails to achieve
lull effammm in its basic function, that of discouraging resort
to MiiUiur and if its warning should be revealed as a bluff, it
smnulaus the contempt for international order which it » * n '
undid in < urinate 1 he theory of collective security is replete
with .ihw ilutis of which none is more basic than the requirement

ot i maims.

In .11 tot dame with this essential of the collective security sys-
tem. the states which constitute the system must be willing to
accept commitments which involve the sacrifice of their freedom
of action or inaction in the most crucial of future situations. They
must say in advance what they will do; they must agTee to dis-
pense with ad hoc national judgments, and bind themselves to a
pattern of action from which they is ill not he at liberty to desiate.
This pattern may be prescribed, at least in part, by the explicit
terms of a multilateral treaty. It may. additionally or alternative y.
be determined by the decision of an international agency. * ,3t
is essential, in cither case, is that the states upon which the opera-
tion of collective security depends should clearly renounce t e
right to withhold their support from a collective undertaking
against whatever aggressions may arise.

Moreover, the renunciation of national decision making capac-
ity necessarily includes surrender of discretionary competence to
resort to forcible action in the absence of international authorim
tion. Collective security can tolerate the maintenance of a care
fully restricted right of self-defense, to be exercised within t te
hounds of international supervision, hut it is a fundamental tc
quirement of a full-fledged system that an international authority
should be the master of all situations involving the use of coercive
instruments. Basically, the state must abdicate its traditional con
trol over the elements of national power, accepting the respon
sibility to act or to refrain from acting in accordance with t ic
stipulations of a multilateral agreement and the dictates o. an
international agency. Thus, the state exposes itself to obligation*
determined by the community for dealing with situations wnic i
may be created by the action and policy of other states.

It is very clear that the acceptance of this kind of commitment
is a drastic if not a revolutionary act for a national state. It ,n
volves a relinquishment of sovereignty in the most crucial area

COLLECTIVE SECURITY AS AN APPROACH TO PEACE 263

but in the short run, such a system operates through the basic
mechanism ol alliances. For the purposes of collective security, a
alliance is either superfluous-since every state is already co
milled to the defense of every other state-or it is incompatible
with the system-since it implies that its members will defend
each other but not outsiders, and raise, doubt that they w.njom
in international sanctions as readily against one of th « r ™“ be
as against other states. The principle of alliance rends to inject
into international relation, a concept of .he advance .den Bauon
of friend, and enemies that is alien to the basic P™P“'“ n “
collective security: whoever commit, aggression 1, everybody
emy; whoever resists aggression is everybody s fnen •

111 of this adds up to .he fundamental subjective recrement
that all states he willing to entrust their destm.es f ' ^

security. Confidence i, the quintessential nonditionof the success
of the system; states must be prepare to re y p ljke j y to
ness and impartiality. If they are so prepare , ... h this

behave in sSch a way as to ~ the
confidence will prove justified. If they . an( j ma ke

certain to resort to policies which undermin y bestosv

it unworthy of the confidence which they dechned to bestosv
upon it. The familiar dilemma of circularity
lective security cannot work unless the poja^ an cstraordi .
spired by confidence in the system, b Q , ; n t j, e

nary act of political faith for states to repose “,e CU rity

system svithout previous demonstration t a DO j; t ; cs and

worts. The stakes are high in the world of power H ““ f o[
suites do not lightly underrate experiments m the cnttcal

national security. . f collective secu-

This analysis of the subjective requirements
rity proves nothing if not that the .“'ngem

institutionally espoused by the Leapm ma century. It calls

demands upon the human beings o t e csve 0 g cnds the roost
lor a moral transformation of political ™>"' ism and

pacific and the most bellicose of men. it dial „ c)ashn with
isolationism as svell as militarism an im P e ” ..['national sever-
.he views ol the most conservative supports o^nauon^ ^
eignty and the most libera. ancien. na-

foreign policy; u demands

262

SWORDS

INTO PLOWSHARES

of collective security is to combat assaults upon the currently
legitimate pattern ot national rights, and the responsibility of par-
ticipating peoples is to cooperate in that enterprise without regard
to any underlying sympathies they may have for claims of fru
trated justice that may be enunciated by the assailants. As g
eral proposition, peace through justice must be the watchword
of collective security. However, its provisional rule of action can
hardly be any other than peace over justice, and the member
states of the system must be prepared to go to war to preserv
the system which keeps the peace, even though this involves in-
jury to innocent people and the squelching of valid objections
the moral legitimacy of the legally established state of things.

A basic requirement of collective security is that it function
impartially. It is a design for preserving the integrity of the anon-
ymous victim of attack by the anonymous aggressor; it is no re-
specter of states, but an instrument to be directed against any
aggressor, on behalf of any violated state. This description poin
to one of the significant differences between a balance of j P° WCT
system and a collective security system: in the former, colla ora
tive activity is directed against undue power, as such, while in t e
latter it is turned against aggressive policy, whether that P° ,c ^
be pursued by a giant which threatens to grow to earth-sha ing
proportions or by a pygmy which has scant prospect of becoming
a major factor in world politics . 11

The demands imposed by the principle of anonymity upon 1
states which form a collective security system provide further in
dications of the distinction between the new and the old regimes
for the management of international relations. If collective secu
rity is to operate impartially, governments and peoples must e
liibit a fundamental flexibility of policy and sentiment. France
must be as ready to defend Germany as Belgium against aggres
sion, and Britain must be equally willing to join in collective
sanctions against the United States or the Soviet Union. In s or ,
collective security recognizes no traditional friendships an
inveterate enmities, and permits no alliances with or alliance
against. It is true that a balance of power system, in the long
requires similar changes of partners and redefinition of vi a*

“Cf. Wright, Problems of Stability and Progress in International Felatio , P

ce 265

COLLECTIVE SECURITY AS AN APPROACH TO PEA

implication of the generality oi collective security. The s Y st .™V*
intended to provide security for every state against the particular
threat which arouses its national anxiety, and 1 every po
aggressor, every state which is the source of the mis § mn § s
another state, were excluded, the system would have very sparse

membership indeed. ■

In any event, a workable system o£ collecme secunty can
hardly afford the exclusion or abstention of a major p •
is particularly damaging to have an important. tomm re a land
naval power on the outside, for the danger o its re
operate and to acquiesce in the infringement of its > normal rights
is sufficient to render improbable the effective app lc
nomic sanctions to an aggressor. The doctrine
rity relies heavily upon the proposition t at nomrii com .

will normally be adequate to stifle aggressio . tbat

mitments arl acceptable only because of the
they will rarely be invoked-but economic sanctions are p
iarly dependent upon universal application ° power dif-

The basic importance of the objective cond.uom of power dd
fusion and organizational comprehensiveness 1 suc h an

collective security assumes the possibi lty o j

imbalance of power in favor of the

aggression will he prevented by motion may

by the minimal efforts of collective power

be invalidated by rhe inadequate diffusion

configuration is such that uo “”^ ib * ty b open for collec-
per cent of the world s strength, the p against it, a very

live security to mobilize up to ,™ n 'J y p " cv er, one state conttols
comfortable margin ° f . s “f* r '°"‘ y - ’ iesour ces, forty-five pet

a very substantial portion of global p strength is doubt-

cent. for instance, the collective matching o l US ^streng. h ^ ^
fui and the massing of overwhelming M*> ^ aho c)aI ified

festly impossible. The impotonce of nnniern j ' ^ a „.

by this analysis; as a collective s Y , c.ifficient resources
inclusiveness, the possibility of its in (h( . oppo sitc direc-

to outclass any aggressor grows; as i inished.

tion, that possibility is corresponding y >*" for organ-

The point is that collective security r u not a des. n
iting coalition warfare in the twent.e.h<entury sense.

264 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHAR

tional hatreds and the willingness to abandon traditional nanona
friendships. Indeed, the question inexorably anse, «hed er
demand, imposed upon the human mtnd and »*« W “
security are in truth less rigorous tiran those imposed by the rdea
of world government. Is collective security really a hallway ^

1 £ human beings were fully prepared to meet the subjective K-
quirements of collective security, would they be already prep

for world government? •

Objective Requirements 0/ Collective Security. The prercqu -
site, thus far diseussed have .0 do with .he human sttuatmn. Coh
lective security also depend, upon the sausfactton of a number ^o
basic conditions in the external sphere-in the power situation,
the legal situation, and the organizational situation. _

The ideal setting for a collective security system is a worm
characterized by a considerable diffusion of power. The mos
favorable situation would be one in which all states commanuca
approximately equal resources, and the least favora e,
marked by the concentration of effective power in a very
major states. The existence of several great powers of rou D n y
equal strength is essential to collective security.

Given a power configuration meeting this minimal req
ment, a collective security system next demands substantia *
yersality of membership. It might be argued that potentia b
gressors might just as well be omitted, since they presumably
dishonor both the negative obligations and the positive res P°^
sibilities incumbent upon members, or that they might ette
left out, since their absence will facilitate the planning an
tiation of collective measures to restrain their misbehavior. ^
is a plausible view, even though it ignores the value fo ^. an {o
ganized community of having lawless elements clearly su jec
the legal regime — surely, criminals are the last persons w o
to be formally exempted from the bonds of the law. e a^
objection to this position is that it misses the point that co cc
security knows no "probable aggressor” but . assumes 1 a . {

state may become an aggressor. In a sense, this is an expTessio ^
the abstractness which is a leading characteristic of collective
rity; for better or for worse, collective security is not an eX ^
for dealing with a concrete threat to world peace, but a ^
foT a system of world order. In another sense, however, t i

COLLECTIVE SEOUR.TV AS •« APPROACH TO PEACE 267

nity, but also by the general reduction of power, as «nb» d '^“
military instruments. That is to say, collective seaHHy “ ta«l
upon the assumption of partial disarmament. In .met t
terms, the system might work as well at a high level o
as at a low level, but the intrusion of .he subjective
it virtually essential that collective secnrtty have a ^ ^stanually

demilitarized world to work in. This “uihzT "th eWorld's antiwar
is fundamentally an attempt to mobilize the the

forces for the prevention of war by the r j t Te j; es

ambiguity of the system is underl, " e ^ fy. ot „„ is intoler-
for its initiation upon recognition t ,1 e r i$k of

able, and for its operation upon willingness to P
war. Its army of pacifists is tentatively 'funded

because it abhors the use of force. <-i g P r secur Uy

upon this psychological and mora p ’ w jth a

requires a power situation which permit^ ^ reduced I0 military
minimum of military exertion. If every catastro-

weakness, no aggressor will be stronge mough 1 and

phic war out of an encounter with t e ted to { e el that

no member of the enforcement team wi . P { . g pan i nto
its joining up has been a jump from ^ en may bc less inclined
the military fire. Just a, the P« 1 crimin Y a l, are equipped
to volunteer as a policeman « P willingness of peace-

with machine guns rather than .mere fist the : wm , ^
fully-inclined states to participate in military involve-

security is dependent upon the magmtu ^ serve as whistle-

ment prospectively required; they are prep reserve deci-

blowing and nightstick-wielding pohcemen, but they
sion about becoming full-fledged so ‘^ S ' , , ome problem of

At this point, wc again

circularity. Collective security . secur ity has clearly

but states will not disarm untd ma . ntenance of national
shown that it merits confidence. afe unw iHing to en-

military strength is an indication their ar mament policy.

trust their fate to a community age cy, prevents the de-

bom of lack of confidence in collective ^uri^^
vdopment of an effective collective *“ ur be described as

Another significant objective ret l uir . Collective security
the universality of economic vulnerability. Col

266

SWORDS

INTO PLOWSHARES

for organizing international police action in an. unprecedented
sense. Its aim is not to sponsor the winning team in a Eree-for-an,
but to eliminate international brawls by forcing aggressive s
to forfeit their matches before being decisively beaten. It purports
to require of participating states not that they should consent o
compulsory involvement in major wars, but that they s iou
accept obligatory service in a system for preventing major wan,
and it can expect to retain their loyal support only if it succeeds
in reducing, rather than increasing, their exposure to the perns
of military involvement. All this is dependent upon the existence
of a power situation and the achievement of an organization!
situation making the massive overpowering of potential aggressors
a feasible objective. The first essential of a police force is that its
power should be so considerable, and that of its possible oppo
nents so negligible, that any contest will be virtually won be ore
it has begun; otherwise, its function will be that of conducting
warfare, no matter how it may be described.

The intrinsic disadvantages of a collective security force are so
great that its margin of superiority is always smaller than any
purely objective standard of measurement would reveal. Since 1
confronts an anonymous aggressor, its capacity for formulating
advance plans of action is severely limited. Since it is by definition
a coalition force, its strength is very likely to be less than that o
the sum of its parts. Its value depends heavily upon its ability to
act quickly, so as to forestall threatened aggression, and ) et its
very inability to concentrate on plans for defeating a speci i
enemy and its complex structure militate against promptness m
the effective mobilization of its potential strength. Collective
security can command little confidence if it promises to become
effective only after an aggressor has ravaged a country. Given t
nature of modern war, a military campaign cannot be organ*
overnight, and the power of an aggressive state is maximize y

preparatory measures. The collaborative force required for tie
implementation of collective security must be overwhelming y
preponderant in theory if it is to be even somewhat pTepon enm
in practice. _ . Q£

The situation envisaged by collective security is marke n^
only by the wide distribution of power among states an
possibility of the near-monopolization of power by the com

COLLECTIVE SECURITY

approach to pface

operation against a particular state must not be 5 " b i cct “
veto o£ an obstinate minority, and that no state can e pe
to nullify its commitment to act on behalf of the communtty by
withholding its assent from a decision to call for the
of that obligation. The elaboration of an adequate snpe tv sory
agency is no less important to collective securtty than he tausfac-
tion of the subjective requirements and the reahratton of the
prerequisite conditions in the global power situation.

Collective Security and International Organization

It is obvious that at no time have all or even most of the basic
precondition, of collective security been realized and that col
lective security has not become the operative sys
tional relations. Various conclusions tave been dmwn from 'hn
fact. Some people have argued that collecttve ^^ytasd^on
strably failed, and deserves to be thrown m to
discredited ideals. Others have pointer o
put to a genuine test; it ha, not failed to work,
failed to take the necessary steps for pen™ 1 ° , because it is
Some have concluded that it can never e e , dc j 0 { t i, c

impossible in this world to create CXpe ”5? that - lt u within

system envisaged in the blueprints. **

the capacity of human beings to satisfy q estab li»hcd, it
establishment of collective security, and that, once
will prove a valid and useful appro* “ rdketed in the history
These diverse points of view have r - n mrv. Since the

of international organization in th ' ‘ ble to put the issue
First World War. the nations have b ?'" u "f * l b< f en the ideal
of collective security out of their mi - trj e ff cc tiiate;

which they have been able neither to rupu ^ alternately de-
it lias posed requirement, which they ^h ^ ^ stim „lated the
termined to satisfy and eager to . international

creative imagination of the ,.a.« "“'“““ta, appealed to
organization and offended their sensi ■ preronerp-

.heir higher, aspiration, and challenged • ■f. dee^t p ;,.

tion,. The thirty-five-year record ol ^ ‘^^intTl rob
tion ha, been one ol vacillation around .he centra p»

Ifcti’

,e security.

„ SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

268 . .

Zu"on. /envisages a world in wind, every slaters no,
only susceptible to the impact of orgamred force but aim ™'"
able to the squeeze of organized boycott, andt.accord.nBly
gards economic sanctions as its firs, line of attack. It : rec^mzes the
vital importance of holding the military weapon >n reserve, bat
it offers to its participating members the reassun ig P *

that they may be able to discharge their responsibilities by
relatively painless and humane method of denying to agp ■
the benefits of normal intercourse, rather than by running the
risks involved in the reson to arms.

In summary, collective security assumes the existence o
world in which every state is so limited by the distribute
power, the reduction of military power levels by a disarmam
program, and the lack of economic self-sufficiency, that any st
which may develop aggressive inclinations can be held m c i
by methods which probably need not include the large-scale use
force. It assumes the possibility of securing the acceptance y
states of theoretically formidable responsibilities for enforcing
peace, only because it assumes the improbability that it wil
necessary to invoke the performance of the most drastic en or

ment duties. j

Finally, collective security requires the creation of a legal
structural apparatus capable of giving institutional expression to
its basic principles. This involves the legal establishment o 1 1
prohibition of aggression, the commitment of states to collaborate
in the suppression of aggression, and the endowment of an ,nter
national organization with authority to determine when an
against what state sanctions are to be initiated, to decide upon
the nature of the inhibitory measures, to invoke the performance
of duties to which states have committed themselves, and to p ^n
and direct the joint action which it deems necessary for t e
implementation of collective security. The meaningfulness o t ie
system is dependent upon the capacity of the organizational tnec ^
anism to exercise these vital functions without obstruction,
specific terms, this means that the decision to set the system m to

COLLECTIVE SECURITY AS AN ATTROACI. TO REACT 271
Suppose somebody doe. no. Abide by .he*

happen.? An Absolute isolation. » boycott 1 Th ? '"> ' _ .
malic There i. no 'bud or 'if about *».. u
No good, can be .hipped in or out. no " should

earhanged, except duough the elunse niM ^ o[ thc olhcr

be no communication of any , t is ,he most complete

nations and the people of that nation. ■ •

boycott ever conceived in a public documcn .

Although it was assumed that this w*P°" .°f n ^°doubted tiiat
gulalion" tvas a lr«„ (omtidable one ” £*££* 2 pro-
any nation could long withstand tu \ s , nct j 0 av. to l>e
sided for the posaibility of collective mi ^ ^ ^ IcIn i lcI i
initiated upon tiie recommendation enforcement

retained the right to abstain from nett-

program, but they rcpud.ated the rig . , a , hc HiriM to

trality by accepting tl.e obligation to

tl.e joint force, mobilited for upm * ,],e conceptual

Finally, tl.e Covenant gave formal expr !mlt i,y by

telation.bip between peacclul change Assembly ol

ami, citing, in Article 19, the consideration!.) IM
demand, lor alteration oi tire legally esia scenritv was

This «beme lor .he hum it. aery

subjected to the most searching • caps” ol the Cove-

inception. Its flaws sscre fairly olmo i . JU , W lo x csott to

nant. which theoretically opened the n j ,|, c law

the arbitrary use of force without v ‘ o1 ^ "^"j.anism. -ere
and tliercby triggering off the en orc lx3SV ie had no

quickly spotlighted. The itivc obligation of states

• teetir was united l.y the lack. p - n fulfillment of treaty
to participate in military vancti . - oiU j decision. The

commitment or in olseshence to a # _ rtUn r, time it

peaceful change provision was han y *° ,jie Assembly that

Kmiuted at mm. a mere recommendaticm^ ^ „„

unjuu sututions l*e altered. Moreover. ' stench of the

subject a. cvciy pent to jamming by the nmnvey
universal veto

COLLECTIVE SECURITY AS AN APPROACH TO PEACE

In 1935, the League powers overcame their
the burdens oi collective security long enough to sugmattre
Italian aggression in Ethiopia and to organise cconomtc sanct.om
against Italy. However, this surprising mrfafve W no re He
sent a genuine rededication to the pr.naples ot oollect.vesec'.my
enshrined in the Covenant; the spirit of irresohu on qutcU, re
turned, and the spark of determination .0 “ ak , e ’ VS?"

effective bulwark against aggression sputtered and ■
was permitted to triumph in contempt of the and the

Brst great attempt to create a collective ^ analysis , th e

for all practical purposes terminated. , adopt in

members of the League could never bring t e . fi ^ j the

policy the collective security system which they had r “
Covenant. Instead, they sought to hnd securtty.n
through the traditional devices of nations p spectl a more

The Charter of the United Nation, .sm ™r^ respects ^
satisfactory constitutional basis for legal

than the Covenant. It leaves no such sub-
fence for aggressors to m0 re comprehensive

stitutes for a limited prohibition #i ^ k even unde rtakes

proscription of the threat or use of f > , r orcero ent meas-
to close the gap of fictitious defensive an control and super-

ures by subjecting all coercive activity es more elaborate

vision of the Security Council. It 1 P . , requiring states
and ambitious provisions for sanctions. ns * un -,i a terally recog-
to impose economic penalties if » ^ them the luxury

nize the existence of aggression, a P* ° he charte r brings

of voluntary participation in military s > . Council,

all enforcement activity under the aegis oE .^“'“Jaggressor,
conferring npon tha. body ^

to order members to engage in b i y t0 be placed at

to put into action the military £”,1

its permanent disposal by members . t 0 £ providing

Nevertheless, rhe Charter

an ideal institutional system for t j t p 0Sl p 0 nes

rity. I, is an incomplete document, in the seme ^

- To, .„»« «I

“Article 2, paragraph 4. t

“Articles 51 and 55.

“Articles 59 50

272

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

The Covenant was far from a perfect design for collective
security. It imposed inadequate legal restrictions upon potential
aggressors and exacted insufficient commitments for enforcement
action from member states. The League which it created was
deficient in legal authority and practical competence for making
the international decisions required for the management of a
collective security system. The Wilsonian ideal had inspired the
Covenant, but it had not been translated by the Covenant into a
set of definite prescriptions for guaranteeing that the combined re-
sources of the community would be available to frustrate aggres-
sion.

The history of the League was a record of constant efforts to
strengthen and to weaken the collective security provisions of the
Covenant. This was not so much a contest between friends and
enemies of the principle of collective security, as a vacillation
between the desire to enjoy the benefits and the urge to avoid
paying the price of collective security. The League could neither
take collective security nor leave it alone.

This process began almost before the ink was dry on the Cove-
nant. Misgivings about the excessive commitments contained in
Articles 10 and 16 were expressed in the earliest debates of the
League, and, in 1921, the Assembly passed a series of Resolutions
Concerning the Economic Weapon* 2 which emphasized the right
of each state to decide for itself whether the occasion for applies*
tion of economic sanctions had arrived, and approved the idea
that the principle of immediate and absolute boycott should be
interpreted to mean gradual and partial boycott. Having suc-
ceeded in watering down the strongest section of its collective
security provisions, the League now gave its urgent attention to
projects for concocting a headier brew; in 1923, the Assembly
considered a draft Treaty of Mutual Assistance, and in 1924, it
adopted the Geneva Protocol, calling for the strengthening 0
obligations for enforcing the peace. These were typical episodes
in the life of the League. Studies and consultations concerning the
sanctions system went forward almost incessantly, hut it took a
man with exceptional mental power to remember whether on any
given day he was expected to be dedicated to strengthening or
weakening the provisions of the Covenant.

* League Document A.14, 1927, v.

ce 277

COLLECTIVE SECURITY AS AN APPROACH TO PEA

effect upon the contractual factor. In terms of formal commit-
mem. the North Atlantic Treaty is as infenor to a true .alhance m
the United Nations Charter is to a true collective security arrange
mem. Yet, the political reality of the situation is that the memben
of NATO are more firmly bound together mutual defend
than they have been disposed to state in the exp ici
treaty. Most significantly, the United States m ' .

maintaining the fiction that it reserves the sovereign right mde^
cide for itself whether it will take military action i Droce ss

Atlantic allies, but has also promoted and participated tn a process
of organizational involvemOTt and enmnghrment iw ap

that it has in fact forfeited that right. NA . . . dc .

organizational web expressing and reinforcing 1 . . , it j,

.equation of the United States to align ttsell i defim. nd d

.he Iree nations of Europe in "'nATO STSSI a
Joint military action of the members of - r(T - n : 2 at j 0 n.
promise of their treaty as a premise of their ga . . t0

This point is indicative of the major virtue of
choose the NATO alternative to the erection o Atljm ic

rity system for dealing with the ex.

Treaty means more than it says. «*' , f contrived has

pres, ion of the collective security pr.ncip e thus t
meant les, than it said. The political realism oi th KOO <
prise is evidenced by .he fact that the loopholes m ^ ^
irresponsibility which mar its J "* 1 o[ organizational

constricted rather than expanded in the p
development. . of how to

NATO provides no certain answers to 1 1C £ ” d o[ a ui 3 n cc,
achieve a satisfactory world order. It isa SU P . bcen t heo-
and it may be able to do what an alliance h^ ah^ bee. ^
tctically capable of doing: P««minS 1 ^ ° hat on i y 3 »

"ar, or winning that war if 11 oc • , ; n ,he unprece-

alliance, and only an alliance ralinff the power and

dented fashion of NATO, is capable g ", Jth t |, e Soviet

effectuating the policy necessary or e ^ Nevertheless, it
threat to peace in the present worl an a uiance can

must l>c recognized that NATO can < o ' . jj.. co uh! do if

do. it onnot do wliat collective 'ccurityti I0 jay, in

collet me security were a feasible achievement.

2J6 SWORD S INTO PLOWSHARES

To assert that the decision was made to refrain from trying ; to
institutionalize collective security is not to admit that the deas
failed to reflect creative imagination. NATO does not rep
simply a retrogression to the bad old days of competitive alliances.
In terms of formally binding commitments, it is less than an ol
fashioned alliance, but in fundamentally vital respects, it is

more than such a grouping.

In organizational terms. NATO is something new under tne
international sun. It is an alliance which involves the construction
of institutional mechanisms, the development of multilateral pro-
cedures, and die elaboration of preparatory plans for the condu
of joint military action in future contingencies. It substitutes or
the mere promise of improvised collaboration in the event o
crisis the developing actuality of planned collaboration in antic*
pation of a military challenge to its members. It is a coa ltm
consisting not merely of a treaty on file, but also of an organ iM
tion in being— a Secretary-General and permanent staff, a Council,
a network of committees, a military command structure, stu y
groups, and liaison agencies. NATO represents a twentieth-cen
tury elaboration of the alliance concept, in contrast to the co
Jectivc security ideal of obtaining the abandonment and rep ace
raent of the alliance concept. The adequacy of the organizations
pattern which has evolved upon the foundation of the Nort
Atlantic Treaty remains to be tested, and it is already evi ent
that the structure is seriously deficient in that it does not inclu c
instrumentalities of political collaboration sufficiently develope
to complement its military components. 28 In comparative terms,
NATO is not an exceptionally advanced form of internationa
organization, and it is by no means self-evident that NATO H
destined to become the progenitor of audacious internationa is*
schemes. Nevertheless, it represents an impressive organization
achievement, in that it applies the principle of multilatera or
ganization to a new area — that of the alliance. This utilization °
the concept of international organization for the transformation
rather than the supplantation of alliances may prove to be a hig y
significant precedent. .

The organizational factor in NATO clearly has a considera c

»S»e Piul Henri Spaik. "The Atom Bomb and NATO." foreign A8 a ‘ rl •
1415. pc SS6-JS9.

COLLECTIVE SECURITY AS AN APPROACH TO PEACE 279
scheme, viewed as an expedient for extending the theoretical
range of the United Nations collective security system, is marked
by serious deficiencies. Its operative organ, the Assembly, has only
recommendatory authority, and is too big, too slow, and too
diffuse in political composition to constitute an ideal instrument
for collective security; the Assembly’s incapacities are different
from those of the Security Council, but they arc not necessarily
Jess significant. Moreover, the Uniting for Peace system falls
seriously short of guaranteeing collective security, in that it in-
volves no firm commitment by any state, and consequently offers
no potential victim of attach any real assurance of collective as-
sistance. In short, this system fails to meet the crucial test of
certainty ; states cannot realistically depend upon it to provide the
essential measure of security, and they are for that reason unable
to abandon the quest for strength through national armament and
alliance-building. The continuation of these policies is a definite
symptom of the failure to realize the ideal of collective security,
and an obstacle to progress toward that ideal. As in the case of
NATO, the Uniting for Peace system may prove to be a useful
expedient, but it ought not to be confused with a genuine col-
lective security arrangement.

In terms of political realism, this alteration of the Charter
scheme was not intended as a move to institute collective security
in a realm left vacant by the statesmen of San Francisco. It was an
American initialise, and it was clearly conceited as a device
whereby the United States might invoke the moral support of the
United Nations for such resorts to force as it might find necessary
and desirable in the course of it* cold war struggles. In proposing
the plan, the United States did not purport to expose itself to
new and more rigorous obligations to aid victims of aggression.
American postwar policy has consistently failed to reflect any
induration to develop the capacity of international organization
to tell the United States that it must act militarily, or that it must
not act. the Uniting for Peace plan was typical of American policy'
m chat tt put the United Nations in a position to tell the Vi tiled
States and its allies tliat they may art. lo confer its oflitial blessings
upon such action as the Western bloc mar choose 10 undertake.

the scheme may hate little effect, since the growing potency
of neutralist forces m the organization may make it inordinately

sword:

S INTO FLOWSHAREl

essence, that NATO offers only a means of dealing with an im-
mediate and specific situation, and not a pattern for a permanent
and general s>siem of world order. But there is no occasion for
champions of NATO to feel defensive about the fact that it is
not a collective security system; it is a feasible project today
precisds because it is different from collective security, and it is
use ful in so far as it offers realizable alternatives to the currently
unobtainable benefits of collective security.

I he second major reaction of the United Nations to the realiza-
tion tiiat world peace was urgently threatened by a great power
against which no collective security bulwarks bad been erecte
was to adopt the elaborate Uniting for Peace scheme, whereby the
General Assembly projected itself into the area of security opera-
tions hitherto reserved for the Security Council.* 0

On the face of it, this alteration resembled the patcliing-up
operations which the League periodically undertook for the
purpose of strengthening its collective security aspects. It "a’
initiated in response to the realization that collective enforcement
of some sort might be organized even against aggressors support
by a great power, provided that the blocking effect of the Security
Council veto rule could be circumvented. Specifically, it follow*
upon the Korean action of 1930; in that case, a fortuitous combi-
nation of factors had made the United Nations willing and ab e
to sponsor collective military- resistance to an invasion supports
if not instigated by the Soviet Union, in contradiction to the
implicit assumption of the Charter that the organization shou <
not attempt the collective security function in such circumstances.
The Uniting for Peace plan represented an effort to institu-
tionalize the reversal of that assumption, to provide a regularize*
means for doing what bad been done by improvisation in t ie
Korean case. Tims, it might be interpreted as a move to create a
system of collective security applicable, as the original Charter
system had not been, to aggression by, or under the auspices o , a
permanent member of the Security Council.

It is possible that the General Assembly, acting under the re-
vised terms of reference adopted in 1930, may facilitate the 1110 ‘
lization of collective defense against future aggressive acts blcssn
In one or more RTeat powers. However, the Uniting f° r Peace

•St^pp l?« IT7.

280 S " ,OROS ,! ‘ TO r '-°" sa ’ Lnt '
difficult to obtain a two-think Assembly vote to approve Western
military policy, the bloc veto of neutralism in the Assembly coul
conceivably become as formidable as the unilateral veto of the
Soviet Union in the Security Council, However, when and it
Assembly endorsement of American-sponsored action is possible,
it may have significant moral value. Additionally, the Assem y
may provide organitational facilities for the mobilitation and
coordination of multilateral assistance to the upholders of the
cause which it endorses. In short, the Uniting for Peace plan
represents the possibility that the world organiration may be two
to bestow ideological respectability upon and encourage P'r'P
eral support for anti-Communist military activity came ou
under American leadership.

The two major innovations in the global security sys e
since 1945, NATO and Uniting for Peace, fit together my nicely.
Working under ideal conditions, ihe former would provide tn
effective military coalition, and the latter would secure the inter
national moral sanction, for concerted resistance to a
assault upon the free world by the Soviet bloc. The estab is mc
of this dual scheme is certainly not equivalent to the realization
the ideal of collective security, but it is perhaps the best aval a
approach to the critical security problem of our time.

We have seen that neither of the great world organizations
measured up to the legal and structural requirements of a co
lective security system. The failure to achieve collective secun »
however, goes much deeper than inadequacies of formal comtm
roent and imperfections of institutional structure and competence
The truth is that hardly any of the fundamental requirements
collective security has been met in the world of the twentie
century. . - „

In the objective sphere, the League had the advantage o o
bom into a world characterized by a considerable diffusion^
power. States of great power Tank were numerous enough at ’
end of the First World War, and the concept of universality
economic vulnerability was sufficiently reflected in reality,
provide a setting reasonably well adapted to the operation
lective security, if other conditions had been fasorable. But
conditions svere not favorable, and the result was that the ' V ° T
lost its chance. Indeed, history may record that the first chanc

COLLECTIVE SECURITY AS AN APPROACH TO PEACE 283

eighteenth* or nineteenth-century kind of world, doomed to ir-
relevance in the twentieth century because of the disappearance
of the multiplicity of great powers in favor of the duality of super-
powers. '

The final and decisive reason for the failure of the League and
the United Nations to achieve a working system of collective
security is the unfulfillment of the requisite subjective conditions.
Neither peoples nor governments have undergone the transforma-
tion of viewpoints, attitudes, and values which collective security
demands. Much effort has been expended in singling out the
villains who have frustrated the realization of the conditions of
peace, as defined by the theory of collective security, but the truth
is that the responsibility is widely diffused. Stodgy old diplomat!
and militarists have sneered at the idealism of collective security,
and idealists and pacifists have betrayed its realistic premise that
the upholders of peace must be prepared to fight at the drop of a
steel helmet. Ruthless dictators like Hitler have defied the law
against aggression, and isolationist democracies like preAVorld
War If America have indulged in the selfish and self-defeating
luxury of sovereign irresponsibility. Great powers have insisted
upon maintaining a free hand in foreign policy, and minor states
have sought to enjoy the status of consumers only, and not pro-
ducers, of collective security.

In the League era. the United States never went further than
assuring the Disarmament Conference that, if it should put into
effect a general scheme of disarmament, America would he willing
to consult regarding threats to the peace and to pledge itself not to
interfere with collective actions directed against aggression, pro-
vided it should agree that such actions were justifiable in the given
case.’ 1 Lest this promise that "we probably will Tetrain from
hindering your work” should sound too daringly cooperative, the
American spokesman later announced that "The United States
will not . . . make any commitment whatever to use its armed
forces for the settlement of any dispute anywhere,” 15

In the same era, virtually identical sentiments were firing ex-
pressed by the leaden of states which had theoretically accepted.

ggo SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

When the United States knocked out the objective prop of
essential universality, it became almost inevitable that the ob-
jective condition of regulated disarmament should fail of realiza-
tion. Thus, despite the potentiality offered by the global power
configuration, the League did not secure the kind of world— a
world of substantially disarmed nations, united in virtual una-
nimity for carrying out the functions of collective security w 11C
was requisite for the experiment in security policy to which it was
verbally committed. The League might have failed even i t e
objective conditions of collective security had been realized, but it
could hardly have met any other fate under the circumstances

with which it was actually confronted. _

The United Nations was spared the crippling at birth wnic
had been inflicted by the United States upon its predecessor, »t
it had the misfortune of being introduced into a world character-
ized by a pattern of power distribution wholly out of keeping wit
the objective requirements of collective security. A less favora e
environment than that of the present postwar era, marked by t e
concentration of effective power in two massive states, each o
them able to dispose of resources making it virtually invulnera e
to nonmilitary sanctions and rendering illusory the concept o
overwhelmingly preponderant force against it, can hardly be con-
ceived. In 1920, a sensible man could envisage the possibility t iat
any state might be seriously hampered by economic sanctions or
decisively outclassed by collective forces organized to
aggression; in 1945, no sensible man could believe that this e
true in the case of the Soviet Union or the United States. Super

powers of their ilk, possessing or being in a position

to control so

gTeat a percentage of the world’s war-making resources, are no
realistically susceptible to the workings of a collective security
system. Aggression launched by such a power might be aejca >
but it could not be frustrated in the manner conceived by t ’ e
theorists of collective security. The failure of the United ^ atl0 ^
to bring about the disarmament of the giants only intensifies t '
situation. The sad fact is that die kind of world in which co

lective security might be a feasible proposition, assuming _
the requirements other than those relating to objective con diot^
were satisfied, simply does not exist. History may record that co^
lettive security was a conceptual scheme for dealing wi

that all

COLLECTIVE SECURITY AS AN APPROACH TO PEACE 285

mental human alterations which are essential to collective security
have by no means been accomplished. Men, by and large, are
still unprepared to act as if they believe in the indivisibility of
peace; they are not Teady to acknowledge the primacy of a global
community and to assume the identity of national interests with
the universal interest; they are not willing to accept the risks of
commitment to defend any victim against any aggressor under
unforeseeable circumstances in accordance with the decision of
an international agency which is independent of national control;
they are not prepared to bet their national life upon the proposi-
tion that the international community will faithfully and effectu-
ally safeguard their security; they are not confident that they can
forego the autonomous pursuit of national strength and the discre-
tionary formulation of national policy for dealing with future
contingencies. To cite an important example, the American peo-
ple have just become psychologically and ideologically fit to partic-
ipate in a modernized type of alliance, designed to deter or defeat
aggression from a specified quarter. This represents progress, but
it is a far try from the mentality of collective security. As things
stand today, only a state which is threatened by the possibility of
Communist aggression enjoys the reasonable prospect that it may
benefit from multilateral assistance resembling in some measure
the collaborative aid envisaged by collective security.

The Desirability of Collective Security. The official ideology of
international organization in the twentieth century has tended to
treat collective security as an unquestioned ideal. Internationalist
reaction to the failure to achieve the ideal has generally involved
regretful reflection upon the difficulty of transforming the value
systems and behavior patterns of nation-oriented leaders and peo-
ples, and hopeful consideration of the possibility of inducing the
human alterations and promoting the changes in objective circum-
stances which aTe essential for its attainment. Collective security
would be a good thing if it could be established; the problem ts to
establish it. This rather smug ideological assumption demands a
skeptical evaluation.

The challenging of the collective security proposition may well
begin tsitli a critical look at the bias mtvard automarbm which
pervades the doctrine. Collective security seeks to provide a
deterring effcri upon potential aggressor* and a reasoning effect

,, g4 SWORDS INTO PLOWS II ARTS

rather than rejected, the obligation, of collective «ct,ti t) . A
Canadian spokesman, Senator Dandnrand, rationalized hi, coun-
try's reluctance to fulfill collective security commitments by argu-
ing that: "In this association of mutual insurance against tat.
the risks assumed by the different states are not equal. We live in
a fireproof house, far from inflammable material.” 33 France ‘
played enthusiasm for collective security only in so far as it rntgi
operate to promote French security against a German resurgence,
and Germany pointed up the problem of creating a S cnu |j\ e
impartial and universal security system in a statement that
German Government cannot imagine it a practical reality t a
Germany, one day, should be defended on her own territory Dy
Soviet Russian troops against an attack in the West or by Fre " c '
troops against an attack in the East.” 31 British statesmen soun e
strangely like representatives of the United States, in sue c
press ions as these:

Nations cannot be expected to incur automatic obligations save for
areas where their vital interests are concerned. . . •

It is really essential that we should not enter into any exte ” S ‘'*
general and undefined commitment with the result that, to a g
extent, our foreign policy would depend, not on this country,
Parliament and its electors, but on a lot of foreign governme
I am not prepared to engage this country by new unspecified ^
mitments operating under conditions which cannot e
seen. . . .* s

These subjective conditions have not been basically change i
the United Nations era. The world’s sense of interdepen en^
has increased, and the community of peril has to some extent ^
recognized as a community of interest. In many instances, ^
horizons of national concern have been broadened. A tn° st 5 j t<x j
cant change has occurred in the attitude and policy of the n j
States, which has largely discarded its isolationist illusions an ^
fetish of the right to be irresponsible. Nevertheless, the un

■Citnl in Harold Butler, The Lost Peace (London: Taber and Ut.

■ Cited in Royal Institute o( International Affair*. International M" -mber'lalrt.

■Citation! (rom Anthony Eden, Sir John Simon, and Neville rtue!!. Sl° jn
John W. Whetler-Bennett. .Munich r Prologue to Tragedy (New Yot .
and Pearce. 1W8). pp. SS. SIS J56. 358.

COLLECTIVE SECURITY AS AN APPROACH TO PEACE 287

There can be no substitute for, or guarantee of, sound judgment
and moral integrity.

Aside from the ultimate unattainability of absolute predict-
ability in this sphere, a good case can be made for the undesira-
bility of the kind of automation in foreign policy which collective
security postulates. There is undoubted value in making it ab-
solutely clear in advance what the response to aggression will be;
it is quite probable that World War II might have been averted,
as has so often been suggested, if the Axis dictators had been con-
vinced that they would be confronted with the coalition which
was in fact mobilized against them. But this coin has another side.
To adopt a rigid formulation of future policy in international
relations is to ignore the infinite variety of circumstances, the flux
of contingency, the mutability of situations, which characterize
that field, and to abdicate the function of applying statesmanlike
rationality to problems as they arise. Hans Wehberg recognized
the importance of preserving an area for the exercise of discre-
tionary statesmanship when he warned that the concept of autom-
atism might mean that “sanctions would run die League instead
of the League running the sanctions." ST There is something to be
said for keeping the potential enemy guessing as well as for in-
forming his expectations, and there is a great deal to be said for
preventing his becoming master of the disposition of potential
opposing forces by exploiting the possibility of making them
rush Id points of his own choosing whenever he rings a bell. For
example, assuming the existence of a full-fledged collective secu-
rity system today, there would be a serious danger that the Soviet
Union might deliberately pull the triggers that would bring col-
lective forces into Asia, in order to catch the United Nations off
balance for a major assault in Europe. This kind of maneuver is
always a danger, and the way to guard against it is assuredly not
to adopt a policy of automatic response which precludes cautious
avoidance of the trap.

In short, it is a counsel of prudence that, in a world which is
approaching the development of push-button warfare, there
should be no attempt at push-button foreign policy. If the nations

"Died in Papon S Wild. Jr., Sanctions end Treaty Enforcement (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1934). p. t<9.

286

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

Upon potential victims of aggression; for the achievement of this
central purpose, it relies upon the inflexible definition in advance
of the policy of the constituent states of the system. Neither friend
nor foe of international order must be left in doubt that the
illegal use of force will inexorably evoke the collective action of
the community.

This concept of foreordained, automatic reaction to aggression
is incapable of realization, regardless of the degree to which the
conditions of collective security may be fulfilled. In this rea m,
the quest for absolute certainty is the pursuit of a will-o’-thc-wisp.
If the commitment to institute sanctions is defined in a treaty ru e,
as in the case of the League, the finding that appropriate occasion
has arisen for carrying out the obligation must be made by t e
responsible leaders of the participating states, and there can be no
guarantee that they will make such a finding; if the responsibi ity
for setting the collective security mechanism into motion is en-
trusted to an international agency, as in the case of the United Na-
tions, the essential decisions will have to be determined by t e
votes of governmental representatives, and there can be no guar
antee that their votes will reflect the realities of aggression or t e
ideal of collective security. The point is that the critical decision*
must always be made by men, and no treaty formulation or msti
tutional blueprint can give assurance that human beings wi
infallibly produce decisions representing accurate appreciation
of the facts and faithful adherence to principle. It is unavoi a e
that the aggTessor should always be able to hope, and the victim
be compelled to fear, that the collective security system woul no
be put into operation. As P. B. Potter has put it:

no advance definition can remove the necessity for the exercise
some judgment in the premises. And the power to apply or not
apply sanctions must be lodged in some authority of the sta j;jg ra ]
order to work the system at all. Automatic sanctions in any 1
sense are figments of the imagination; no legal prescriptions,
ever complete, which require positive action for their execu ’
can ever operate without the intervention of some human age

““Sanctions Against a Recalcitrant State,” Howard O. Eaton, ed.,

Tile Coming Structure o J World Government (Norman: University o
Press, 194-1), p. 107. Copyright, 1914, by the University of Oklahoma •

2gg SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

have poor statesmen, they had better tty to get good ones, rather
than try to substitute robotistic collective security operatives. The
successful conduce of international affairs requires a more prag-
matic approach than is compatible with the essentially doctrinaire
theoretical system of collective security.

From a practical point of view, there are problems in the appli-
cation of collective security which have not been fully appreciated
or dealt with in its theoretical formulation. Collective security is
very much like Marxism, in the sense that its theory has reflected
excessive preoccupation with the moment of initiation of decisive
action. Marxism focuses on the revolution, without adequate
concern for what happens later; collective security focuses on the
instigation of sanctions, without adequate concern for further
developments. In particular, collective security offers no theoret-
ical guide to the problems of concluding collective action, de-
termining the limits of community coercion, and establishing a
settlement after the successful squelching of aggression. This was
illustrated in the Korean case, imperfect as it was as an instance of
collective security in operation.*® The doctrine calls the upholders
of world order into action, but it leaves them unenlightened con-
cerning such vital questions as how far to press their action and
how to liquidate the state of quasi-war between the community
and the culprit.

The Marxist analogy may also be applied to the closely related
problem of leadership. Marxism postulates an automatic out-
cropping of revolution, but then turns to reliance upon dedicated
leaders — without, however, remembering to provide a means for
guaranteeing that leaders will not distort the revolution to serve
their own ends. Collective security seems to neglect the whole
issue of leadership, assuming a kind of spontaneous collective
response to the challenge of aggression. As the Korean episode
made clear, however, the doctrinal system needs a well-developed
concept of leadership. Only the determined initiative of the
United States made United Nations intervention in Korea possi-
ble, and only a much more elaborate system for controlling and
directing the exercise of American leadership could have made
the episode a reasonable facsimile of collective security operation.

"See Leland M. Goodrich, “Korea: Collective Measures Again Jt Aggression
International Conciliation, No. 494. October 1955.

COLLECTIVE SECURITY AS AN APPROACH TO PEACE 289

Collective security is both more dependent upon the availability
of great power leadership and more needful of means for con-
fining its leaders within the framework of collective responsibility
than its theorists have realized.

Aside from these indications that the problems of collective
security go beyond the mere difficulties of getting it established
and accepted, there are reservations of a moral nature which call
into question the very desirability of collective security as an
ideal purpose of international organization.

The moral criticism begins with a sophisticated reminder that
no highly developed moral consensus exists on the global plane,
that no nation’s history is free from the taint of immoral inter-
national behavior, and that no international conflict is unaffected
by moral ambiguity. It may be argued that collective security is
the embodiment of an offensive moral pretentiousness, in that it
purports to organize the forces of good against the evil-doers, and
of a tendency toward enormous moral oversimplification, in that
it equates rebelliousness with moral guilt, even though it be
rebelliousness against the injustice of a coercively established and
maintained status quo.

There is certainly much truth in the observation that moral
issues are seldom clear-cut in international affairs. In practice,
collective security might either operate on the basis of dubiously
valid moral judgments, or be reduced to inactivity by the difficulty
of making nice moral distinctions.

Vet, all this is beside the point. Collective security is conceived
as a legal, rather than a moral, system, and it has only such moral
value as may be attributed to any scheme for obviating the arbi-
trary use of force. The whole legal enterprise of human society is
involved in the penalization of disturbers of the peace, without
too much consideration of the factors which make the peace
susceptible of disturbance. In moral terms, the justification of
law and order, whether it be upheld by governmental or collective
security systems, is that it provides a stable context within which
the quest for substantive justice may be pursued. It may be
doubted whether the "plague on everybody’s house" of those
whose consciousness of moral relativism makes them unwilling to
hazard moral distinctions is normatively superior to the “plague
on a particular house" which collective security is supposed to

290

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

pronounce. Collective security is based upon the «J

that the international moral spectrum ts l.m.ted to black an
white, but that the differential shadings of gray are more signifi-
cant than the universality of gray. .

The moral objection raised by literal pacifism is not one that
can detain us here. Suffice it to say here that collective security a
at one with every significant concept of national or world govern-
ment in assuming the necessity and legitimacy of posing the threat
of authorized force for the purpose of minimizing the incidence o
unauthorized force. The argument that collective security tends
to increase the global quantity of violence by universalizing e iy
local war is really directed against the practicability rather i tha
the moral quality of the collective security concept. The a 651 ?"
to prevent local wars by organizing universal opposition to o
aggression; this scheme may not work, but it is no less devo
than pacifism to the ideal of eliminating war. < . .

Finally, collective secutity is subject to the moral criticism
it contemplates the indiscriminate punishment of entire popu
lions for the misdeeds of their governments— in short, that in-
volves resort to war rather than police action. This mora pro e
has long weighed on the hearts of advocates of collective secun y,
it affected the members of a special League body in 1935 s
drastically that they brought themselves to suggest, in a report o
possible economic sanctions:

It is possible that a deterrent effect o£ some importance might e
attained without any very serious disturbance of economic li e, o
example by the withholding of some product such as coffee or co
fish, which the population are unwilling to forego, but which, so
as any essential needs are concerned, could easily be dispense

In general, the League suffered from a coffee and codfish
mentality which reflected not so much a hopeless stupidity con
ceming the realities of international politics as a moral sensitivity
concerning the implications of starving, or shooting, innocen
women and children. Today, this moral dilemma has become
largely the property of champions of world government, who use

“Cited in Royal Institute of International Affairs, International Sanctions, p 203

INTO PLOWSHARES

Conclusion

The ideal of establishing collective security h * S J*** " d * nt K,
realized nor abandoned. The goal has been d e ref

and consistently in words than in deeds, an roncrete

ularly turned to other objectives when ronfron^d Wl* nae>
situations o[ urgency. The world is very far from ,

of the essential requirements for permitting t P in

collective security system, and such a system, even ‘ f
fact a less attractive idea, than it has often been consnh ued. Nev„
theless, this doctrine has achieved a major ideolo„ical ilgn ^ ^
and it is probable that international orgamration ml
pin its gaze upon the objective of collective security, while
lating toward and away from it in actual Pd]wy- llcct ; vc

If the analysis has suggested that the establishmen ,

security would be a miracle, but that it would not worltm.
if established, this point ought not to be taken t ^

There arc few if any doctrinal systems which can rviths ^

rigors of a maximalist analysis. Democracy, for instance, f ^
better than collective security if subjected to a logic w P
to the edges of its theoretical foundations. There is a j

practicable minimum, according to which systems are imp
established, and work moderately well, in defiance of
logical gravity which should bring them tumbling down.

This happy rule of thumb in human affairs applies l ^

of collective security. Some approximation of collectlv ^

action has been undertaken in two notable cases: t e
vasion of Ethiopia in 1935, and the Communist assau ^

South Korea in 1950. If the League’s action m the to ^

was a failure, it was certainly not an unqualified tai u *. m
proved if anything the possible effectiveness of collective *
under better circumstances TatheT than the inherent unw ^
of such an enterprise. If the action of the United Nat, ° d sUC .
latter case was a success, it was certainly not an unqu ^

cess, for it did little to increase the probability that sl ““ ive
—but action more fully compatible with the concep Ne { t her
security— would be forthcoming in future e ™ erg *? C ‘ ed 0 f the
theoretical criticism nor practical experience has a P

COLLECTIVE SECURITY AS AN APPROACH TO PEACE 293

possibility that the principles embodied in the doctrine of col-
lective security may serve as elements contributing to the empir-
ical development by international organization of a more effective
approach to world order than has hitherto been realized.

It can be devastatingly demonstrated, as Walter Schiffer has
done, that collective security is based upon the inherently con-
tradictory proposition that states are both irresponsible enough
to create the urgent problem of war and responsible enough to
solve the problem; as Schiffer put it, in a discussion of the League:
The idea that a special machinery for the prevention of war was
necessary implied the pessimistic assumption that the world's condi-
tion still was far from being perfect. But without the optimistic
assumption that reason and good faith prevailed in the world, it
could not be hoped that the new regime would work. It may be
said that, as far as the prevention of -war was concerned, the
League’s successful functioning depended on conditions which, if
they had existed, would have made the organization unnecessary.* 1

It can be proved that collective security is a circular proposition,
demanding the prior satisfaction of requirements which can be
satisfied only after collective security has become successfully
operative, and purporting to solve problems by means which
assume that the problems have already been solved. It can be
pointed out that a full-fledged collective security system cannot be
achieved at one fell swoop, but that an incomplete and imperfect
system may do more harm than good, by inducing states to rely
upon it when it is unreliable, and by promoting the universaliza-
tion of wars when it is in no position to achieve the collective
frustration of aggression.

Yet. the point remains that the theory of collective security has
inspired the growing recognition that war anywhere is a threat to
order everywhere, has contributed to the maintenance of the
realistic awareness that it is states which are the effective com-
ponents of international society and which are consequently the
essential objects of a system aiming at the control of international
disorder, and has stimulated the rudimentary development of a
reuse of responsibility to a world community on the part of gov-
ernments and peoples. As a doctrinaire formula for a global

“ Th* U A at Community of York: Columb: * Vntvtni 'T

p iw

294

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

panacea, collective security is a snare as well as a delusion; as a
formulation of the reality of global involvements and the ideal ot
global responsibilities, it may be a vital contribution to the evo-
lutionary development of the conditions of peace through inter-
national organization.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Frye. William R., A United Nations Peace Force, New York: Oceana
Publications (for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace),
1957.

Goodrich, L. M, Korea: A Study of U. S. Policy in the United Nations,
New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1956.

Goodrich, L. M., and Anne P. Simons, The United Nations an< *jj*c
Maintenance of International Peace and Security, Washington: e
Brookings Institution, 1955.

Haas, Ernst B., “Types of Collective Security: An Examination of Op-
erational Concepts,” American Political Science Review, March 195 ,
pp. 40-62.

Ismay, Lord, NATO, the First Five Years, Paris: NATO, 1955.

Liska, George, International Equilibrium, Cambridge: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 1957.

Martin, Andrew, Collective Security: A Progress Report, Pans.
UNESCO, 1952.

Royal Institute ot International Affairs, International Sanctions, Lon-
don: Oxford University Press, 1938.

Walters, F. P., A History of the League of Nations, London: Oxford
University Press, 1952, Vol. II, Chap. 53.

Wolfers, Arnold, Britain and France Between Two Wars, New York-
Harcourt, Brace, 1940.

Disarmament as an
Approach to Peace

The concept of disarmament — a term which is used here to
include the limitation, control, and reduction of the human and
material instrumentalities of warfare as well as their literal aboli-
tion — has occupied a prominent place in the thinking of persons
concerned with world peace for more than a century and a half.
Immanuel Kant inciuded the elimination of standing armies as
the third of his ''Preliminary Articles of Perpetual Peace Between
States,” 1 and the nineteenth century was marked by the develop-
ment in many countries of a considerable body of support for the
idea of disarmament. The conclusion of the Rush-Bagot Agree-
ment of 1817, whereby the United States and Britain laid the
foundations for the remarkable policy of nonmilitarization of
the Canadian-American frontier, signified the intrusion of the
idea into the realm of practical statesmanship. On various occa-
sions during the century, governmental leaders expressed interest
in disarmament, and the concept achieved an unprecedented
degree of official international notice when Czar Nicholas 11 cited
its realization as one of the major objectives of the first Hague
Conference, in his celebrated Rescript of August 24, 1898. Thus,

1 Perpetual Peace, p. 4.

SWORDS INTO PLOW:

296

disarmament became a part of the stock of ideas bequeathed to the
twentieth century by the nineteenth *

The Theory of Disarmament

Taken with strict literalness, disarmament appears as an ap-
pealingly direct and simple means to peace. Whereas pacific settle-
ment proposes to leave states with nothing to fight about, and
collective security proposes to confront aggressors with too much
to fight against, disarmament proposes to deprive nations of any-
thing to fight with. It purports to eliminate war in the most
straightforward way conceivable — by eliminating the means by
which it is possible to wage war. Franklin Roosevelt gave voice
to this concept when he defined his “Fourth Freedom” in terms of
“a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such
a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit
an act of physical aggression against any neighbor — anywhere in
the world.” * It is a feature of this approach that it renders un-
necessary any analysis of the causes of war; no matter what men
fight about, or even if they fight simply because they are men, it
provides an answer to the problem of belligerence.

Disarmament theory is not always so rigorously simple-minded
as this. It has, in fact, contributed its share to the body of thought
concerning the causation of war. In its more sophisticated ver-
sions, it rests upon the assumption that national military re-
sources do not merely make war physically possible, but that they
figure significantly among the factors which make war a political
probability.

It may be argued that the sheer possession of vast lethal power
imposes an undue strain upon mere human beings. Men are not
gods, and when they gather the power of the gods in their hands
they come to behave like beasts. The nation which develops
inordinate military strength can hardly avoid the ultimate loss of
self-restraint, the disposition to gain its ends by coercion, and the
repudiation of the values of peaceful accommodation. The cor-
rupting influence of power operates not only in dictatorships,

•See Merie Tate, The Disarmament Illusion: The Movement for a Limitation
of Armaments to 1907 (New York: Macmillan, 1942).

1 A Decade of American Foreign Policy, p. 1.

DISARMAMENT AS AN AFFROACH TO PFACE

where it stimulates the aggressive instincts o£ unchecked rulers
but also in democracies, where it debases popular standards of
international morality and tends to promote the excessive influ-
ence of professional military men. This analysis lays particular
emphasis upon the point that great armaments enhance the possi-
bility that a state’s foreign policy will be colored by the pre-
sumably militaristic views of its officer class.

If military superiority breeds arrogance and ruthlessness, mi l-
tary rivalry breeds mutual fear which is all too eastly transformed
into hatred and neurotic insecurity. Disarmament theory is really
less concerned with the political effects of military preponderance
than with the implications of the arms race. Tensions produce
armament; armament breeds counter-armament; competitive
armament increases tensions. The self-propelling arms race isre-
garded as an inexorable march to the violent climax of war. The
certainty of the catastrophic conclusion e *P ,a1 "'? b

ous ways. It may be postulated that war will be P^P'“ ' d
the calculated decision of a party which gams a i precar ous tod,

or which fears that time is on the s ' d ' “'.“.S' “™luce trigger-happi
anticipated that the stress of the rac F rMClions t0 minor
ness on one or both sides, making P tha[ taxpayers’

provocations. Resort may be had To oE sust aining

weariness will lead to war, as the . 4 Theorists may

the competition grows to itltolerab e ^^ >tic ‘ d<K1 n,tlon, sug-
lnttoduce the deterministic concep * o[ seeding the

getting that military establishraen oint of critical mass and

bounds of human control, reach g P be broac hed that

thereupon ’’just going olf ’" than for making war, are

armaments, having no other y obviously be used for that
clearly created for that purpose ^ build up rea dy military

purpose; who can believe tha p u$e? The prediction of a

potential except to put it to mi 1 alleged lessons of his-

b!oody conclusion may be based upon the allege
tory; have not arms races always cu ^ be attributed to the
Whether the inevitability of t ^ the irrationality of

frailty of human nature, the ra >o ^ combustib ;ii ty 0 f counter
governmental leaders, the . tab | e workings of history, the
poised military forces, or t e 1

299

DISARMAMENT AS ---

mass. etc. — in analyzing the prosper

Military establishments ate mstrum r may incit e gov-

makers. and while the possessi P d e sober con -

emtnents to go to war, it may ^“ L a latcr part of national
straint. It is not necessardy *™ C prcp aration, the imagination
life becomes consumed b V ® ^ ? 5 Quke the reverse may be

toward peaceful solutions is pote ntial of modern

true; rising consciousness of ( „ tce Operating at a

warfare may breed reluctance to regard war as a

relatively low level of power, stat “^ decide t0 use it without
manageable irntnimart^policy^ tha , level may

S Id” si— ,°y of war and to promote a search
for alternative means of conducting P o lc J‘ curre nt situation
• This analysis has possible appl.ca Soviet and
of political hostility and arms compe i quantities of

the western blocs. The accumu lation of^enorm ^ ^
destructive power may lead n repudiation of war by

hydrogen bombs but to the po ■ , mutual cancellation

statesmen; opposing stodtprles may P 1 ^ mm ^ the

rather than mutual ignition. Indeedit “ t0 fight. The phe-
nations are on *' r “ d “ b "°Ta S straw'hTthe 0 historical wind,
nomenon of the cold war m y hostility than as an m-

It is less remarkable as an J r implementing

dication of reluctance to use nn ^ ^ an improvised sub-
hostile purposes; hut0 "^ * usc L^vorld was too effectively
stitute foT war, adopted Similar significance may be

armed to permit the use o agression by proxy and

attributed to the postwar deve op conflicts since World

fraudulent civil war; t ie uni Soviet Union’s reluctance to

War II have been expression inclination to use force

initiate World War ili no >~ han ofm ^ ^ ^ ^
to achieve its asms. dev< , Io pment of lethal weapons, but

caused by the extraordmary d nMimiUut , means may

the disposition to “ nd "“ CT JJ aKS in global and total m this
haye been so “ a ' usa o[ as in spite of the fact that un-

' nM S ° DK . t» r« (*» '•”* '«)•

♦Clark M Eichelberger. UN. The

APPROACH to

3QQ SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

precedented armed might has become available to the contestants.

This point of view has been most ably expressed by Sir Winston
Churchill, who told the British House of Commons on Novem-
ber 3, 1953, with reference to the new weapons of mass destruc-
tion:

Indeed I ha\e sometimes the odd thought that the annihilating
character of these agencies may bring an utterly unforeseeable
security to mankind.

When I was a schoolboy I was not good at arithmetic but I have
since heard it said that certain mathematical quantities when they
pass through infinity change their signs from plus to minus or the
other way round.

It may be that this rule may have a novel application and that
when the advance of destructive weapons enables everyone to ki
everybody else nobody will want to kill anyone at all.

At any rate, it seems pretty safe to say that a war which begins
by both sides suflermg what they dread most, and that is un-
doubtedly the case at present, is less likely to occur than one which
dangles the lurid prizes of former ages before ambitious e>es.®

The British statesman has been quoted as referring to “the bal-
ance of terror” as a possible substitute for the balance of power»
and as asserting: "It is to the universality of potential destruction
that we may look with hope and even confidence ." 1

Many will feel less than fully reassured by the thesis that the
weapons of fission and fusion which are certain to make a new
global war infinitely more terrible tend also to make its occur-
rence less probable. Nevertheless, the indication of this possibility
is a useful offset to the dogmatic and somewhat mystical conten-
tion of disarmament theorists that the explosiveness of the inter-
national situation is a direct and inescapable function of the size
of existing stockpiles of military explosives. The Churchillian in-
version does not deny the ideal of a disarmed world, but it does
challenge the fatalism of those who can find no hope in an arme
world. The world has a way of managing to survive less by abol-
ishing dangerous forces than by finding and utilizing countervai -
ing forces and tendencies.

* New York Times, November 4, 1 953. on

T Richard H. Rovere, "Letter from Washington," The New Yorker, January
1955, p. 74.

DISARMAMENT AS AN APPROACH TO PEACE

301

The concept o l disarmament is at its theoretical best when it
is combined with other approaches to peace. As we have seen,
disarmament is integrally related to the theory of collective secu-
rity; as a theoretical proposition, the drastic limitation of national
weapons and the effective organization of collaborative coercion
add up to a hopeful answer to the question of how to assure
world order. Similarly, disarmament forms a part of the concep-
tual complex in most schemes for world federation. Disarmament
has assumed an equally prominent place in the development of
theoretical approaches to peace through economic and social wel-
fare. In the latter context, the case against competitive armaments
is not so much that they may cause war as that they cost money
and absorb resources, “threatening the stability of the world’s eco-
nomic structure which is necessary for peaceful existence,” * and
impeding concentration upon the constructive task of improving
the lot of mankind. A notable shift toward this emphasis is indi-
cated by the fact that the League Covenant referred simply to the
proposition that “the maintenance of peace requires the reduction
of national armaments/’ * whereas the major allies of World War
II stated the problem in the Moscow Declaration and the Dum-
barton Oaks Proposals, and the founding fathers of the United
Nations expressed it in the Charter, in terms of the desirability
of achieving “the least diversion for armaments of the world’s
human and economic resources." 10

Whether or not disarmament per se constitutes a valid ap-
proach to peace, it is probable that any adequate solution to the
problem of world order must include disarmament as one of its
elements. The uncontrolled accumulation of military strength

by national states is a symbol and a consequence of failure to solve
the political problem of world order. It is futile in the sense that
it offers states no prospect of meaningful and permanent security.
It is dangerous in the sense that it may increase the probability
of war, and that even if it has the opposite effect, it nevertheless
makes any possible war a more certain catastrophe for human
civilization. It is damaging- Mipbeame * amnme,

economic resources to such on extern that it hampers the achieve-

• Eichelberger, op. at., p-
•Annie 8, paragraph 1.
United Nations Charter,

48 .

Article 25,

302

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

ment of human welfare, thereby facilitating the encroachment of
totalitarian tyrannies upon free peoples without the necessity of
military conquest, and contributing to the creation of funda-
mental economic and social evils which render the world more
susceptible to war. It is incompatible with the launching and
operation of experimental schemes which offer hopeful possibil-
ities of solving the basic problems of world order. If disarmament
is no panacea for what ails the world, it is at least a necessary
condition for the development of therapeutic methods which give
promise of useful results.

International Organization and
the Disarmament Movement

The case for disarmament has proved sufficiently attractive to
secure a place for the project of arms reduction on the agenda of
official international discussion ever since the Hague Conference
of 1899. The second Hague Conference tried, not quite success-
fully, to exclude the issue from its deliberations, but the framers
of the League Covenant took pains to ensure that the first general
world organization would devote considerable attention to the
problem, making disarmament one of the featured aspects of its
quest for peace and security. 11 The League was almost continu-
ously occupied with efforts to formulate an acceptable plan for
the limitation of military forces, efforts which were supplemented
by such extra-League negotiations as those at the Washington Con-
ference of 1921-22 and the London Naval Conference of 1930,
and which culminated in the Disarmament Conference convened
at Geneva in 1932. The United Nations Charter reaffirmed, albeit
with less decisive emphasis than the Covenant, the concern of in-
ternational organization with the problem of disarmament, 12 and
the new organization has continued the League tradition by spon-
soring persistent efforts to achieve general agreement upon a solu-
tion of the problem.

The disarmament movement has been extraordinarily successful
in the sense that its project has been firmly established as a part
of the necessary and proper business of international organization;

" See Articles 1 (paragraph 2), 8, 9. and 22 (paragraph 5).

” See Articles 11, 26. and 47.

SWORDS INTO plows:

RES

developed a much greater readiness, if not eagerness, to engage
in international discussions concerning disarmament, but this is
not to say that they have consistently exhibited a sincere desire
to explore the possibilities of agreement. International organiza-
tion has become a great promoter of sheer diplomatic loquacity
and lias provided exceptional opportunities for the exercise of
propagandists shill; disarmament debates provide as good exam-
ples as one might seeh of speeches for the record only, and pro-
posals formulated with a view to their unacceptability.

Even if statesmen are as interested in disarmament as in public
international talks about disarmament, the possibility of achiev-
ing general agreement on the subject is severely limited by the
intricate relationships between the instruments of power and the
fundamental political factors of world afFairs.

Military establishments are, in the first instance, related to the
problem of the status quo. The function of national power » to
uphold or to challenge the existing pattern of relationships, or to
influence the establishment of a new one at a time when the
world stands between the dissolution of the past and the defini-
tion of the future. Power is a relative phenomenon, and it lies in
the nature of politics that statesmen should be more profoundly
concerned with the ratios of its distribution than the absolute
levels of its development. A scheme for the regulation of arma-
ments must involve either the freezing of the balance of power,
at or below existing quantitative levels, or the alteration of the
balance of power through the prescription of differential degrees
of disarmament. In the former case, the attitudes of governments
will be determined by tlicir estimates of the adequacy of their
power position for implementing their policies with respect to
the status quo; in the latter case, acceptability of the scheme
hinges upon the capacity of the disadvantaged states to become
convinced that the distribution of national power will be irrele-
vant to the management of international relations in the era that
lies ahead. In either case, the focus of practical statesmanship
must lie upon the question of power relationships, in contrast to
the preoccupation of disarmament theory with the quantitative
aspect of the power situation.

There is no political barrier to the reduction of armaments a*
such, except in so far as it may have an unwanted impact upon

805

DISARMAMENT AS AN APPROACH TO TT ACT.
domestic politics, but disarmament pro^^necw J [orcc$ may

litical evaluation because any pr because a permanent

be found to alter the balance of power and *^^ hidl is
regulation of national miUtaiy po end an oM and start

essential if disarmament is to do of states t o abandon

a new arms race — involves the Thus, .he

the autonomous manipulation of the balance o^power^^u^,^^

eta of disarmament is to .

the prereduction balance or the p nerpetuating an exist-

If disarmament is conceived in term q{ P ari ^ amen t, it is con-
ing balance of power at » J( som e states are always

fronted with the political di ? their dangerously in-

eager to improve what they consi er to consolidate what

ferior position and others are e position. Moreover,

they consider to be a precarious y P is conditioned by

satisfaction with a given power configmat q{ ^ a

attitudes toward the status quo. ex j st ing arrangements, but

theoretically adequate for upholder ^ the objective of

a definite preponderance of stT * 5 disarmament is that it

ambitious revisionists. The uoobU ^ i|me u ever quite
must begin at some point in ti - t ; c ip an t$— for beginning

Tight — in the eyes of all the esse . ? j livc repudiation, is the

it. Indefinite procrastination, no hairs of the chain-

political reaction most responsible for
pions of disarmament.

nons of disarmament. f „ the status q«o “y f

I! a disarmament plan which • , m t,itioitt stain, one winch

,1 tnt-itinn is frustrating to ,^„ in3 power rcla.

tiomhips is alarming to

the power situation is frustrau.* i b reversing power rcla-
promise, to undermine „I rhe established order,

lion, hips is alarming m the '*V*™\ hc national power position
The urge to avoid the «->nen.n “ in disarmament confer,
i, rhe universal passion of , I “'"Ten.1...siasm fur d,janname m
ences. far more signiftcantlhan 3 ^ ' , consider the for.

itself: responsible s.a.nnenua’y^ t r n ^. cr , 0 „ Kr u.n .he tdc

swearing of national amb.t.on-

ol red, umg .he relative «•"" attitude at.nimta!,', *

The prominence of th.» mdamcn.af problem of «*rr
the direct involvement of he > iHim q „„ pale tnto ere

f'.eneial atmudes towanl •'* * , It fa a tan of me-

nth ranee beside this ban'

ijQg SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

national life that no nation is likely to believe that it enjoys more
than the essential margin of safety, or to admit that its competi-
tors have confined themselves to the military preparations neces-
sary for the defense of legitimate interests; "in the realm of arms,
one nation’s common sense is another nation’s high blood pres-
sure." 1S Statesmen may accept the abstract view that an arms race
is inimical to security, but this does not lead to the conclusion
that the acceptance of inferiority under a disarmament treaty, any
more than the failure to keep pace in an arms race, is conducive

to security.

The answer to all these political reservations is presumably
that disarmament must be part of a package which includes means
for establishing a general settlement of outstanding issues, up-
holding the status quo, promoting peaceful change, and guaran-
teeing national security. This is to say that national forces must
be rendered superfluous through the provision of alternative
means for the performance of their legitimate functions. The
moral of this story is that "the problem of disarmament is not
the problem of disarmament. It really is the problem of the or-
ganization of the world community." 18 Thus, in political terms,
disarmament is feasible only within the context of an institutional
system which falls somewhere within the range of ambitiousness
bounded by the League of Nations and world government.

This is not a prescription which permits the evasion of the
problems of priority and circularity. The League represented an
effort to create an organized world order in which disarmament
would make political sense, but it also relied heavily upon dis-
armament to establish the conditions in which its system of order

could become operative. Its history was a record of incessant wres-
tling with the problem of priority, but if the conclusive lesson
of League experience was that political settlement and collective
security must precede disarmament, it was not discovered how
these goals could be reached in a world which had not yet su
jected arms competition to control. This same dilemma applies

in the case of the United Nations.

Despite the development of a sophisticated awareness of the

Steps to Peace A Quaker View of United Slates Foreign Policy (Philadelp
American Friends Service Committee, 1951), p. IS. ...

“Salvador de Madariaga, cited in Quincy Wright, A Study of War, II. 80 •

DISARMAMENT A S AN APPROACH TO PEACE
interrelationship between tnndamental polmcal jrrang^ ^

and disarmament, neither of the wot ° . at t he problem

tieth century has altogether escaped lament. Consideration of
of disarmament is the problem of been more heavily in-

the question in international age ^ tQ disarm is to

fluenced by the Litvinov conception conception which a bet-
disarm” ,T than by the more app P resse d as belief in the

ter Marxist than Litvinov mig t a ■ t he requisite

ultimate "withering away" of of futility

change in political circumstances . contribution of

raises the basic question as to » he *' may not be expected

international organization to tsa affect general pollu-

te derive from wide-ranging activities wh,ch »fte

cal conditions, rather than from sponsorsh p
about disarmament. limitation of armaments is beset

The project of establishing The measurement of

by technical as well as political pro ^ hardly lurpr ,sing

power is by no means a precise ' ( a bout quantitative esti-

that national politicians should q expcrls wo „i d dis-

mates concerning which eve pTec isely the business of

agree. Yet, the measurement of P ,, conventions,
those who would formulate disarms d . sjiman)ent program rs an
The necessary foundation for ^ „ eights of the diverse

agreed system of calculating < Which adds more to

elements which constitute nul.mry Is the American Indus-

military potential, a submarin Chinese manpower supp '

trial piam a greater asset than “ imt , powerful land
How does an atomic air ™“" uest ions might be used to

army? These and a *ousand other qu in the quan-

illustrate the ‘T'^S^ional forces and the definition
titative comparison o . ,

of equivalent power redncuons^ ■ „ reproduce a S-nbah

equivalent power „ ,o reproduce a given nm-

^armament schemes wh ch pu' P “ ment ^ „ encounter

ance of power a. a lower level of ^ ^ ^ of heir
political objections because ^ guiding principle of

technical accuracy.

nt and «*- .

„ Manna Salvin. Son'*
on No 428, February 1947.

*r= ssrSSSJrsr

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

308

reducing each state to the military strength essential for legitimate
defensive purposes fare no better, for they involve the double
uncertainties of measuring power requirements and power poten-
tials, pondering the imponderables of future defensive needs is
surely as precarious an enterprise as measuring the immeasurables
of military might. Projects of qualitative disarmament, aimed at
eliminating “offensive” weapons while permitting the retention
of “defensive” arms, give rise to insuperable problems of defini-
tion, the animals at Madariaga’s imaginary conference found that
“The lion wanted to eliminate all weapons but claws and jaws,
the eagle all but talons and beaks, the bear all but an embracing
hug ” “

It might be argued that the obstacles to disarmament are an,
in the final analysis, political ones, and that the technical prob-
lems would disintegrate if their political foundations were re-
moved. The plausibility of this thesis is established by the com-
plex entanglement of political and technical difficulties which is
discernible in abstract analysis and which has been fully demon-
strated in disarmament debates since World War I. However, the
technical problems are real enough to cause trouble in their own
Tight. Neither an implacably lawless state nor a situation of bitter
rivalry is required to frustrate disarmament. Political animosities
such as those between France and Germany barred disarmament
in the League era, and similar conflicts between the Soviet Union
and the United States have blocked agreement under the United
Nations, but it does not follow that good will and good faith
would pave the way to agreement. Even such inveterate friends
as the United States and Britain probably could not agree on
a formula of mutual arms limitation. The arms question cur-
rently causes no friction between them because they are now
interested in the mutual enhancement, rather than the mutual
reduction, of their strength: in a different world situation, their
established political relationship might well make them indiffer-
ent to the question of their comparative power; but if they should
set out to agree upon a set formula of permissible armament for
each other, based upon the supposition that it was important to
maintain a defined balance between themselves, it Is altogether
likely that the technical obstacles to agreement would prove for-

“ Wright, op. ctL, II, 806.

DISARMAMENT AS AN APPROACH TO PPACE 309

midabtc. The technical problems of disarmament are exaggerated
by political factors, but they also contribute directly to the diffi-
culty of achieving acceptance of plans for regulating national
strength.

The proposal of total disarmament might be considered the
way out of the impasse which is created by the technical difficulty
of reaching agreed estimates of power needs and potentials. But
the power to destroy cannot be literally obliterated so long as
human beings and their productive capacity exist; deindustriali-
zation and perhaps even depopulation of the globe are the ulti-
mate requirements for making war impossible. The best that hu-
man society can realistically aim at is to render arbitrary resort
to violence improbable, and this necessarily involves an effort to
establish the political control, rather than to accomplish the
physical abolition, of the power factor in human affairs. The
establishment of community mastery over the potential violators
of peaceful order, whether it takes the form of collective security
or world government, requires the lodgment of some power in
some human hands, and this means that the problem of prevent-
ing the abuse of power is one that can never be definitively elimi-
nated but must always be subjected to the precarious processes of
political management.

The Problem of International Atomic Control

The complexities of die power problem are well illustrated by
the course of the negotiations concerning disarmament, and par
ticularly the control of atomic and hydrogen weapons, which have
been conducted under the sponsorship of the United Nations.

The recognition of the new dimensions of the problem of war
which arc attributable to the dawning oT the atomic age prompted
the United Nations to assign greater importance to discussions
about anns regulation than had been anticipated in the drafting
of the Charter. The original effort, begun in l!M6. to divorce con-
sideration of atomic weapons from that of conventional weapons
was succeeded in 1912 by the adoption of a unified approach to
the whole arms question. The Disarmament Commission, enjoy.

the mailed ad.aniasc "I authority in dial uttlt all the coot,
pottetm ..(licit enter into the lolartfe <>! miliiaiy pnner. hat

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

310

far been no more successful than the previous Atomic Energy
Commission and Commission for Conventional Armaments in
securing agreement on means for reducing the levels and ending
the competitive building of national power structures.

It is tempting to assign to one intransigent and ruthlessly ex-
pansive state, the Soviet Union, the entire responsibility for
blocking the realization of the disarmament ideal in the post-
World War II world. The Western powers have exhibited the
intellectual comprehension of the requirements of human sur-
vival in the new age and the political reasonableness which are
essential to the conclusion of civilization-saving agreements; the
Communists, on the other hand, have displayed only suspicion,
hostility, and bitter determination to pursue the power struggle
to the resolutely desired end of world conquest. To assert the
inaccuracy of this analysis is not to say that it exaggerates the
difficulty of negotiating with the Soviet Union on disarmament
questions, but rather that it understates the inherent difficulties
of the disarmament approach to the problem of peace.

The original impasse in atomic negotiations was reached dur-
ing the brief period when the United States enjoyed a temporary
monopoly of atomic weapons and of the capacity to produce them.
The United States developed the so-called Acheson-Lilienthal
plan for the international control of atomic energy, which was
presented, with some modifications, by Bernard Baruch as the
official American proposal to the Atomic Energy Commission m
1946.i»

This plan was based upon certain fundamental assumptions o
unchallengeable validity: that the American monopoly was a
passing phenomenon, and that the real choice therefore lay not
between American monopoly and international control, but be-
tween an atomic arms race and international control; that atomic
energy promised to make available enormously useful nonmihtary
benefits, and that it was therefore neither realistic to assume nor
desirable to advocate the abandonment of scientific exploration
in the atomic field; and that the avoidance of an atomic arm*
race required the creation of a continuously operating interna-

**See International Control of Atomic Energy: Growth of a Policy,
o( State Publication 2702 (Washington: Government Printing Office, nd), V
ters V and VI, and Appendix 13.

DISARMAMENT AS AN APPROACH TO PEACE 31 ]

tional control system which could give states assurance that agreed
limitations and prohibitions were being universally observed.

The nature of the institutional safeguards against clandestine
evasion of commitments was to be determined by the relevant
scientific and technological facts. The production of nuclear
materials for peaceful uses could not be divorced from the pro-
duction of potential ingredients for atomic weapons; if states
were to be permitted the uncontrolled operation of atomic proc-
esses for presumably innocent and constructive purposes, no
control system could provide certain detection or prevention of
the illegal diversion of fissionable materials to warlike ends.
Hence, the system of international control should include owner-
ship and direct operation of the mines and die plants for pro-
ducing atomic fuel, monopolistic capacity for research in the field
of atomic weapons, authority to limit states to licensed activity
involving the utilization of nuclear material, and a supplementary
power of uninhibited inspection of national scientific and in-
dustrial establishments, to ensure detection of illicit operation of
processes reserved to the international organ and of misuse of
facilities permitted to states under the restrictive international
licensing power.

It should be noted that inspection was assigned a very limited,
albeit a vital, role in this scheme. It was believed that inspection
could produce reliable results only if the area of national atomic
operations were drastically restricted by the international monop
oly; if states were allowed to engage independently in the full
range of activities necessary for the creation of fissionable mate-
rials, it would be technically impossible for any inspection system
to certify that all such materials were being put to legitimate
uses, and it would be politically impossible for international
inspectors to secure the freedom of intrusion which would be
essential for making a serious effort to provide that certitude. In
short, for both technical and political reasons, inspection was
regarded as the apex, but not the base, of the proposed control
system.

These considerations were incorporated in the American pro-
posal for an Atomic Development Authority, which would use its
capacity for ownership, management, research, licensing, and
inspection to fulfill its responsibility for ensuring the full exploita-

312

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

uu „ of the peaceful potentialities of atomic energy and for pro-
viding states with security against sudden attack by enemies which
had secretly violated the prohibition of atomic weapons. This
plan has been rightly described as a proposal of limited world
government, in the sense that it envisaged an international agency
with functions and powers cutting deeply into the traditiona
preserve of national sovereignty. As Baruch elaborated the scheme
in the Atomic Energy Commission, the Atomic Development
Authority would have had a capacity for intrusion into national
concerns, overriding the principle of domestic jurisdiction, an
an authority for determining and acting upon breaches of the
disarmament treaty, uninhibited by the veto power of any state.

The American position included a firm insistence upon the
evolutionary unfolding of the scheme for international contro
of atomic energy. The plan was to be put into effect by stages,
and the crucial requirement was that the control mechanism
should become fully established and should demonstrate its
capacity for effective operation, before the United States woul
undertake to carry out the obligation, which would be stated m
the basic treaty, to dispose of its atomic weapons, accept the pro-
hibition of the manufacture or use of such weapons, and turn
over to the new agency its full stock of scientific and technological
knowledge concerning the utilization of atomic energy. Contro
must come first; atomic disarmament would follow.

The response of the Soviet Union to the initiative of the
United States was to propose instead a scheme which would in-
volve the preliminary abandonment by the United States of it*
monopolistic position in atomic energy . 20 Existing stocks of nuclear
weapons should be destroyed, and a legal prohibition of the
manufacture or use of such weapons should be established; there-
upon, a system for the international supervision of these commit-
ments should be established and put into operation. Not only
did the USSR demand the reversal of the pattern of priorities put
forward by the United States, but it also rejected the comprehen-
sive list of control mechanisms envisaged in the American plan.
The international agency suggested by the Soviet Union wou
lack the authority to own, operate, and license atomic facilities,
would have only a vaguely defined and apparently quite limits

** Ibid , Appendix 22.

DISARMAMENT AS AN APPROACH TO PEACE 813

competence to inspect national atomic establishments, and would
function in definite subordination to the Security Council, where
the rule of great power unanimity would prevail in respect to all
decisions of substantive importance.

The confrontation of these two fundamentally different pro-
posals soon produced an impasse which destroyed all hope of
achieving the timely establishment of international regulation
in the new field of atomic energy, and of avoiding the develop-
ment of an arms race of unprecedented dimensions. A modified
version of the American proposal was accepted by the Atomic
Energy Commission, and approved by the General Assembly on
November 4, 1948, but the bitter dissent of the Soviet Union
prevented progress toward the realization of the ambitious scheme
for the international control of atomic energy which had been
formulated in the United Nations on the basis of the American
initiative.

This deadlock, formally acknowledged in 1948, has not been
broken. Circumstances have changed in important respects:
American monopoly has given way to intensive American-Soviet
competition; diversified arsenals of atomic weapons have been
added to stockpiles of simple atomic bombs; fusion has become a
more terrible word than fission, with hydrogen bombs towering
over atomic bombs as mountains over molehills. Against this
changing military backdrop, disarmament discussions have con-
tinued in a variety of institutional settings. The United States
has dropped its insistence upon international ownership of mate,
rials and facilities for production of the weapons of the new era,
and has concentrated its emphasis upon the inspection phase of
a possible control system. The Soviet Union has made, or pur.
ported to be willing to make, a number of concessions, including
modification of its insistence upon the priority of atomic prohibi-
tion over atomic control, and enlargement of the supervise
authority of an international control agency. The combinin'* //
negotiations concerning conventional and mass-destruction anu-
ments has led to the elaboration of new patterns in disartnany-.
proposals These developments may ultimately prove to
contained the wedges for cracking the stubborn problem of /„
armament, but the record of negotiations up until mid-J
not encourage an optimistic evaluation of tins possibility.

314

SWOR!

DS INTO PLOWSHARES

the changes in circumstances and shifts in announced policies
which have occurred since the atomic impasse was reached, it
would appear that the fundamental gulf between American and
Soviet positions has not been decisively narrowed.

An analysis of the unproductive quest for disarmament, wmc i
has characterized the United Nations almost since its inception,
yields conclusions which are significant for the considered ju g
ment of disarmament as a function of international organization.

First, the record does not support the contention that the
erection of obstacles to arms agreements is peculiarly a habit or
disposition of totalitarian regimes, or aggressive dictators, or
Communist ideologues. The Soviet positions which Americans
have considered most reprehensibly unreasonable have not been
the products of a special Communist brand of political cynicism,
but rather, in many cases, copies of positions not long abandone
by the United States. If the Soviet Union has played down the
importance of an authoritative and elaborately equipped intc **
national agency for supervising disarmament, it has only adopte
the view, officially stated in 1926 by the United States, that, any
limitation of armaments must rest primarily upon internationa
good faith and respect for treaties"; 21 if it has exhibited suspicion
of international surveillance, it has merely reproduced the un-
willingness to admit foreign inspection of armaments which was
adamantly expressed by the United States, among other Western
powers, in 1919 and 1927. 22 The Soviet scheme for apply* n o a
standard reduction of one-third to the forces of the major powers,
regularly advanced until 1955 and denounced as an evil Com
munist plot with equal regularity, was simply a replica of the
formula suggested by the United States at the League Disarms
ment Conference. 25

Indeed, the exchange of positions on disarmament and other
matters has been so prominent a feature of Soviet-Amencan
relations that the historians of a future era may find it difficult to
accept the notion, so confidently asserted in our time, that tic
conflict between the two powers is rooted in fundamental i e
ological differences which dictate contradictory lines of policy*

“Sir Alfred Zimmern, The American Road to World Peace (New York- Dolton,
1953). p 164

“Wallen, A History of the League of Nations, I, 62. 366.

“Andrew Martin. Collective Security (Pari»: UNESCO, 1952), pp- 51 52.

DISARMAMENT AS AN APPROACH TO PTACE $15

The attitudes which have made the USSR resist the effectuation
of ambitious organizational schemes for international regulation
of armaments since World War II are dearly not derivatives of a
Communist doctrine which other states have not accepted, but
of the obsession with national sovereignty which other states have
in some degree transcended. In short, the Soviet intransigence in
disarmament debates is a reflection of the reactionary rather than
the revolutionary character of the USSR.

The second major point concerning the disarmament debate
in the United Nations is that no means has been discovered for
evading the requirement that states participating in an arms
regulation system be imbued with mutual trust. It has often been
alleged that the original American plan for control oE atomic
energy had precisely the merit that it eliminated dependence
upon the good faith oE states by providing a reliable instrumen-
tality for the enforcement of obligations. In an act of unparalleled
generosity and creative statesmanship, the United States offered
to relinquish its potential for mastering the world, giving other
states certainty against an American atomic assault in exchange
for reciprocal acceptance of institutional restraints. In matters of
atomic life and death, nations cannot be expected to place their
faith in paper promises; when the Soviet Union rejected the
American plan, it refused an arrangement, based squarely upon
the technical facts of atomic enterprise, which would have safe-
guarded the USSR against American perfidy just as it would have
protected the United States against the danger of Soviet unscru-
pulousness. Confidence was to be bestowed upon a foolproof
system, not upon states.

This proposition does not stand up. The Acheson-Lilienthal-
fiaruch proposal seemed to be in conformity with the require-
ments of technical reality, but it did not adequately reflect the
conditions of political reality. States distrusted each other, with
or without good cause, and the plan did not offer a solid basis
for discarding the fears born of mutual apprehensiveness.

In particular, it demanded a considerable measure of Soviet
confidence in the good faith of the United States. Communist
leaders were expected to believe that the United States would in
fact proceed to the carrying out of the final stages of atomic dis-
armament after the initial stage of establishing a control media-

sword:

NTO PLOWSHARES

Sib

msm had been completed. They were to rely upon the honesty of
the United States when it should announce that it had faithfully
fulfilled its obligation to destroy or hand over to the Atomic
Development Authority all its stock of nuclear weapons and
ingredients — for there existed no technically reliable means of
detecting carefully concealed supplies of fissionable material.
American insistence that nothing less than direct international
control of processing from mine to bomb would suffice to give
security under the operation of the plan constituted an admission
that nothing less than Soviet belief in American trustworthiness
would suffice to give confidence that the United States did not
hold out some lethal material when it purported to hand over
the product of its early atomic monopoly to international au-
thority. Moreover, even if America did not cheat at this stage, it
would remain under the operation of the system as the only
state which possessed the full range of knowledge and experience
requisite for constructing atomic weapons; the USSR was asked
to abandon atomic arms research and technological experiment
under circumstances which would leave it inferior to the United
States in scientific capacity to produce nuclear weapons in the
event of a breakdown of the control system.

The Soviet-American struggle over priorities provides a clear
indication of the underlying suspicions which becloud relations
between the two great powers. By common agreement, prohibi-
tion of the manufacture, possession, and use of weapons of mass
destruction and a control system to enforce this prohibition are
the essential elements of an atomic disarmament program. The
United States began by regarding prohibition as the element more
costly to itself, while the Soviet Union considered control as the
more onerous burden for itself. Hence, the United States insisted
upon the priority of control, for fear that the USSR would never
permit the realization of control if it first succeeded in imposing
prohibition upon its rival; the American plan postponed the
American sacrifice until the Soviet sacrifice should have been
made. Contrariwise, the Soviet Union demanded that prohibition
should come first, for fear that the United States would never
actually move to the prohibition stage if it first succeeded w
securing the development of a control system; the Soviet plan

DISARMAMENT AS AN APPROACH To PEACE

317

delayed tlie Soviet sacrifice until the American sacrifice should
have been made. Subsequently, the USSR moved to the advocacy
of “simultaneity*' of prohibition and control, but without offering
convincing evidence that this verbal concession represented a real
change of position. In May 1955, the Soviet Union proposed a
new plan which seemed more nearly compatible with the Ameri-
can concept of priorities.* 4 The point remains, however, that the
basic American plan did not obviate the necessity of relying upon
the assumption of American good faith, and it is reasonable to
assume that this was at least one of the reasons for its unaccept-
ability to the USSR.

Soviet rejection of the American plan also reflected skepticism
of the political impartiality of United Nations agencies. The
Baruch proposal, as approved by the Atomic Energy Commission
and the General Assembly, vested highly significant discretionary
authority in the projected Atomic Development Authority. From
the standpoint of the USSR, this was not the equivalent of a
guarantee that Soviet interests would automatically be protected
against the hostile policies of other states. Rather, to Soviet
leaders, it seemed to involve turning over vital concerns to the
tender mercies of "a majority on whose benevolent attitude
toward the Soviet Union the Soviet people cannot count ." 25
Given the propensity of United Nations organs to register major-
ity decisions regularly opposed to Soviet policies, the USSR had
as little reason to feel reassured by aspects of the atomic control
scheme which purported to lodge authority in an international
agency as by those which demanded confidence in the good faith
of the United States.

The atomic impasse was in part at least the result of the fact
that neither of the basic plans proposed by the chief rival*
eliminated the necessity of mutual trust. The Soviet plan wj,
even more defective from this point of view than the America:-
plan; no scheme has yet been invented, and it is doubtful that
scheme could be devised, which would afford absolute setu-~
against evasion, flagrant violation, or abusive domination

"Text In .V«w lor* Tintrt. ** ,9 '*-

•totcmcM hy Citato. i" Atom* u

IW, .( ,h , Cro^ood,. Pepartmn.1 c4 Suit Pabl«..on SI6I. Or*- ,
Vt.n 3 AVithlngton Mni.r* <***■ !*■ M

318 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

atomic control system by one of the major parties. In a matter so
vital, the assumption of good faith is not enough, but it is in-
dispensable.

Finally, it must be emphasized that the abortive American con-
trol plan was not a magic formula for abolishing the perils of
the atomic age, even from the standpoint of the United States. It
is tempting, but misleading, to assume that if the Soviets had ac-
cepted it and permitted its implementation, the specter of atomic
warfare would have been banished from the earth.

The American plan teas designed to place atomic materials
behind a reliable burglar alarm, not within a burglarproof vault
At best, it offered the prospect of preventing atomic Pearl
Harbors, not of abolishing the possibility of atomic wars; it
provided safeguards against wars’ beginning with atomic bombs,
but not against wars' ending with atomic bombs. The validity of
this point becomes clear when it is realized that the scheme did
not purport to place at the disposal of the United Nations a power
potential adequate to resist efforts by an aggressive state to seize
atomic facilities and materials and turn them immediately to
the production of nuclear weapons. Envisaging this dire possi-
bility, the formulatOTs of the plan offered as a solution the prin-
ciple of strategic balance in the distribution of plants and stock-
piles under the jurisdiction of the Atomic Development Au-
thority. If this principle were put into effect, the seizure of facili-
ties within its geographical grasp by one power would sound the
alarm bell of impending aggression; if the violator persisted,
other states would be in a position to take over atomic facilities
of equivalent value in their vicinities; thus, the system would
have broken down and atomic war would be in the offing, but
surprise atomic attack would have been made impossible, and a
rough balance oE atomic potential would have been assured by
the dispersal of facilities . 28

Seen in this light, the Baruch plan was a scheme for preventing
clandestine preparations for atomic assault, postponing to a mo-
ment of crisis the development of a nuclear arms race, and estab-
lishing moral restraints upon the tendency of states to resort to
the threat of massive destruction for gaining their ends. These
were notably useful objectives, but they did not include the

"See the exposition ot this concept, ibid, pp. 93. 100 101, 134 133, 213.

DISARMAMENT AS AN APPROACH TO PEACE 319

purpose of making atomic war impossible. In the final analysis,
the plan offered no substitute for the fear of retaliation and the
sense of moral obligation as limiting factors in the conduct of
international affairs. Thus, it was by no means a foolproof solu-
tion to the problem of the atomic age.

The intrinsic political difficulties of the project advanced by
the United States were clearly not confined to those which
presumably entered into the Soviet evaluation of the plan. The
risks which would have been entailed for the United States were
considerable ones. If the application of the principle of strategic
balance had not been seriously undertaken, the suspicions of the
Soviet Union would have been confirmed; yet, the application of
that principle in good faith would have involved the construction,
under international auspices and inevitably at some cost to the
United States, of an atomic scientific and industrial complex
within the territorial gTasp of the Soviet Union comparable to
that which had been erected in the United States. The carrying
out of the plan would have required the removal from the Ameri-
can military establishment of the new weapon which had sud-
denly become the major American instrument lor counterbal-
ancing the Soviet manpower potential. It would have involved
the ultimate development of an internationally owned and
operated system of industrial energy which might dwarf the con-
troversial public power enterprises operated by the United States
Government. It would have entailed the reduction of American
sovereignty to an unprecedented degree. To list these drastic
implications of the Baruch plan is surely to raise the question
whether it would have been sound international policy for the
United States to put the plan into effect, as well as the question
whether domestic political considerations would have permitted
the actual implementation of the plan.

All this points to the conclusion that the unreasonable in-
transigence of the Soviet Union was not the sole factor preventing
the world from achieving, in the early postwar years, a foolproof
solution to the problem of perpetuating civilization in the atomic
age. The USSR was certainly unyielding and uncooperative, bur
the plan which it blocked was far from a perfect solution. It was
a genuinely revolutionary’ scheme in some respects, but not in
the sense of providing an adequate substitute for the fundamental

S20

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARFS

requirement of mutual confidence among states, or of supplanting
the fear of retaliation and the commitment to humane values as
the precarious restraints upon the war-mating propensities of na-
tions.

It the concept of internationally regulated and supervised
atomic disarmament never offered a meaningful possibility ot
emancipating mankind from the peri! of nuclear catastrophe even
in the brief period of American atomic monopoly, its potential
as a world-saving principle is still more limited in the present era
of competitive production of weapons of mass destruction.

The day lias passed when an atomic disarmament arrangement
can be legitimately presented to any nation as a technically fool-
proof scheme. The United States now shares the position which
the Soviet Union occupied without American company from 1945
to 1949: the adoption of any conceivable international control
system would have to be supplemented by faith that no nation
would be unscrupulous enough to conceal a supply of material for
conversion into atomic or hydrogen weapons. As explained by
Eugene Rabinowitch, editor of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scien-
tists, this situation has arisen:

(The] technical feasibility of atomic disarmament depends now on a
reliable inventory of existing stocks of fissionable materials. Con
sidering the extremely small bulk of these materials, and the ab-
sence of penetrating radiations emanating from them, > . . the only
possibility of inventorying them is for the agents of the U.N. control
body to be led to the stockpiles by national officials who know
where they are located. Neither the West nor the USSR can be ex-
pected to base their own atomic disarmament on the faith that the
other side has not concealed a substantial part of its stockpile. ... If
this conclusion is true, then we may have to add, to the appalling
knowledge of the material and biological damage of an atomic war,
the recognition that time for an effectively controlled atomic dis-
armament has irretrievably passed, and that attempts to find a com-
promise solution . . . are therefore bound to remain futile. . . .
mankind svill have to live, from now on, with unlimited and un-
checked stockpiles of atomic and thermonuclear explosives piling
up, first in America and the Soviet Union, then in Great Britain,
and later in other countries as well. 27

'“Living With H-Bombs” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist i, January 1955, p- ®-

DISARMAMENT AS AN APPROACH TO PEACE

Given this situation, it seems unreasonable to suppose that, as
Clark Eichelberger has asserted, "The nations can agree upon a
foolproof system of disarmament it a political agreement or series
of political agreements clears the rvay." - Political agreements can
only clear the rvay to a disarmament system which is not tech-
nically foolproof. The fundamental requirement of a ut venal
sense of security has nor. become the development of a mutuality
of confidence and a sense of political harmony so d «P P'™
sive that peoples of the world will find it irrelevant that no system
of inspection can possibly unearth all that might be hidden. T he
urge for an unattainable foolproofness is itself evident that the
world is still far from the political point of being ab e P
with foolproofness. A happy marriage begins when husband and
wife learn not to care in the least that u is impossible 1 f ° .* em
devise a foolproof system for checking up on
political units of international society have not adored thn
of bliss, but it would appear that their best » “ *

ultimate development of
of uncertainty concerning the balance p

" The passage of the years since

has not only reduced the technical Y brought

atomic control system to the vanishing point; it has also^b ^ g ^
additional political complications to • r power blocs

field. Suspicion, and animositres between the P.^,, [r ,
have run deeper as the cold wa> „, or e firmly established;
massive armament programs h a temp orary expedient

rearmament has ceased to be : rep d disarnianle|lt program, and
pending initiation of a mul ' De ,:„ hera l activities of states
disarmament talks have be' P national strength. Most

whose serious business is the tjon have tended to become

significantly, weapons of oI , he military capacity which
increasingly indispensable ' leadership, has laboriously

the Western bloc, under a ^ Soviet expansionism. The

constructed to counter the *. ^jLament are best revealed by the
political prospects of atomic 1 ^ most v ; Kor ous proponent

recognition that the Unite ’ would stand in a posi-

of an international atomic control system.

-Of .

p 51.

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

322

tion perilously close to military nakedness if anything resembling
its own Baruch plan were accepted and put into effect. The
answer might be found in a scheme involving the simultaneous
reduction of conventional and unconventional components of
military strength, such as the Soviet Union agreed to consider in
1955. But even if that were accepted, the continued existence of
the huge population resources of the Soviet bloc would make the
maintenance of atomic potential a vital concern of the Western
powers. The survival of the human race is increasingly imperiled
by the development of the destructive potential which might be
unleashed in time of war, but the survival of what Western man
has learned to live for and to live by has become increasingly
dependent upon the possession of the new varieties of power by
the United States and its allies.

For better or for worse, international organization lends itself
to the stimulation of disarmament negotiations, and provides a
framework of facilities within which such negotiations may take
place. So far as the direct approach to disarmament is concerned,
international organization can do little more. Disarmament is a
field in which states are peculiarly on their own. They may use
such an institution as the United Nations for the dissemination of
propaganda speeches as well as for the organization of serious de-
liberations, and they may choose to exploit its voting machinery
for the registration of majority positions. But the necessary basis
of disarmament is agreement, and this is a function of diplomacy,
not of organizational mechanisms. At most, the United Nations
may facilitate a disarmament agreement among the ■ powers by
providing the institutional context within which an arms control
agency might function.

If the concept of disarmament as a direct approach to peace be
abandoned in favor of the proposition that the reduction of
military establishments is dependent upon the progressive develop-
ment of the conditions of international stability and order, then
the role of international organization in bringing about disarma-
ment may be significant. The history of the League and the
United Nations provides little support for the thesis that inter-
national organization can contribute to the prevention of war by
sponsoring disarmament conferences and consultations; the future
of the United Nations holds the possibility that international

323

DISARMAMENT AS AN APPROACH TO PEACE

organization can contribute to the prevention of excessive arma-
ment burdens by sponsoring collaborative efforts to get at the
heart of the problem of war. What the United Nations can do for
disarmament will be determined in the whole range of its or-
ganizational apparatus, not merely and not even primarily in the
narrow confines of its Disarmament Commission.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Bolt*, Charles G.. The Price of Peace: A Plan for Disarmament, Boston:
Beacon Press, 1956.

Cavers, David F., "Disarmament and the Charter," pp. 130-152 in Com-
mission to Study the Organization of Peace, Charter Review Confer-
ence, Ninth Report and Papers Presented to the Commission, New
York: 1955.

International Control of Atomic Energy: Growth of a Poho-, Depart-
ment of State Publication 2702, Washington: Government Printing
Office, n.d. (1916?).

International Control o/ Atomic energy: Policy at the

Departmem of State Publication 3161. Washington: Government
Printing Office, 1948.

Salvin, Marina, "Soviet Policy toward Disarmament," Internal, and
Conciliation, No. 428, February 1947.

Tate, Metre, The Disarmament Illation: The ^

lion of to 1907, Ne» York: Macmillan. 1942.

Tate, Metre. The Vailed Slater and Armaments, Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1948.

CHAPTER

The Grand Debate
Approach to Peace

The efforts of the League and the United Nations to cotne
directly to grips with the political issues of international relations
are not wholly reducible to the categories of pacific settlement,
collective security, and disarmament. These relatively specific
approaches to a solution of the world’s political difficulties have
been supplemented by a more general type of institutional func-
tioning in the political area: the sponsorship of a more or less
continuous “grand debate" among the representatives of the
constituent units of international society. Whatever else inter-
national organization may be, it is a platform and an auditorium,
an organized colloquy, a talk-shop. The parade of speakers across
the stage of the Assembly hall during the general debate which
opens each session is no less symbolic of the political role espoused
by the United Nations than the figure of the mediator standing
between hostile statesmen, the vision of a conglomerate army
carrying an international flag in battle against an aggressor, or the
spectacle of military experts huddled over a statistical chart of the
global armaments situation. The political significance of inter-
national organization may depend as much upon its public
rostrum as upon its private round tables and its operational ap-
paratus.

THE CRAND DEBATE APPROACH TO PEACE

325

The Values of the Grand Debate

The utility o£ international speech-making is very difficult to
evaluate with confidence. It may be that the assignment of a
forum function to international organization is simply an exten-
sion to a new realm of the faith in talk which is fundamental to
the liberal democratic tradition. It is no mere semantic accident
that democracy has long been associated with parliamentary
methods; the conviction that conversation is a distinctively civi-
lized mode of behavior underlies the conception of democracy as
“government by discussion." This democratic bias toward verbal
interchange as an instrument of politics is reflected in the proposi-
tion that it is better for statesmen to argue than to fight, and in
the hope, embedded in the foundations of international organiza-
tion, that debate may eliminate the need and the will to fight.
Alternatively, it might be suggested that the verbalism of inter-
national organization is a characteristic inflicted upon it by the
statesmen who are responsible for their countries foreign rela-
tions; not for nothing are they called national * spokesmen, and
their urge to speak upon an international stage may derive less
From the conviction that tvorld order will be promoted by multf
lateral discussion than from the belief that na, tonal .merest may
be promoted by tl.eir forensic efforts. In any '"0. the grand
debate is an established tradition of internet, onal otgan

There can be little doubt that such a forum as the League
Assembly or the General Assembly of the Un.ted Nanons fiUs an
essential role in the world of the twent.eth century. Th t rangre-
gation of national representatives does more than qnAoIut' the
rotmdness and the shrinking circumference °l *= glote Upra.
vides a composite _ptou« of^he :*at< t e » ^

awareness of the force, and &c on ^ ^

the changes and rtgtdtt.es the foreshadow the

title the international problems of the time a,

. future In short, it formulates the agenda ol
great issues of the niture. in

statesmanship. createst political contribution

History may well ^ordthat thcjrc* ^ ^ ^ ^

made by the United »> exploratory development of pa r .

mem of specific disputes or the p

327

THE GRAND DEBATE APPROACH TO PEACE
expression of such sentiments of solidarity and the formulation
o£ such principles of order as the political state of human society
permits. The deliberation of statesmen in the League and the
United Nations has invested the concept of international public
policy with some slight meaning; the notion of moral responsi-
bility has acquired a currency which indicates that it has become
lodged, however precariously, in political reality; the principle of
international accountability has become sufficiently we esta
lished to make it a normal expectation that statesmen will submit
to the requirement of explaining and justifying their policies be-
fore the world. In this respect, the mantle of sovereignty has be-
come very much like the emperor's famous clothes -VI* 1 e 10 e

determined theorist, but invisible to the literal-minded little boy.

The grand debate has yielded a not inconsiderable list of gen-
erally agreed international standards; prohibition of
warfare, avoidance of forcible intervention except under extreme
provocation, respect for a minimum Stan at o u *

recognition of the legitimacy of aspirations for ' e ' [ .8°™™ment
and economic development, etc. Clearly, these , "

imprecise that their verbal acceptance repesen^s ^ emm .
than the achievement of a practically , rvnicism which

equally clearly, they are subject “” 0l "7 a "" imp 2 l!ty whic h is
is provided by the nature of state m „ n itv But

permitted by the nature of the /“wfdie evolving body of
these realistic reservations do not re ga than ,i ie ob-

international standards to doctrinal ma „ers and fail to

serration that Christians disagree d^ o[ th e

live up to their ideals demons imperfect realization of

whole Christian tradition, or * ? convicts American

the promises embodied sham. It is a
constitutional democracy ot o nation violates the

sobering fact for Amerimns to ponder that <« iimmUTy im „„a.
rights of its neighbors, as d American states

tional consensus, more cons “™ as define d by the United
have violated the rights ot ° a * oencies Q f t i, e rudimentary
States Constitution; do ” M display an exceptionally

international community cc ' international standards,

uncritical attitude toward vio a

328 SWORDS INTO P Lu tf 5IIARI S

as compared with the tenderness exhibited until very recently by
the American Supreme Court toward states intent upon denying
Negroes their constitutional rights.

The realization of the ideal of an elaborate body of norma-
tively advanced standards of political behavior, reflecting general
agreement upon operative principles and not merely upon verbal
formulations, and carrying the guarantee of reliable enforcement
in cases of aberrant behavior, is a singularly rare phenomenon in
any human society, be it national or international. This ideal lias
clearly not been realized in the international community, but
more than negligible progress toward its realization has been pro-
duced by the multilateral consideration of the world’s problems
and requirements which has been sponsored by the League and
the United Nations. In so far as there is, at the present time,
validity in the concept of the climate of world opinion and efficacy
in the concept of international moral restraint and compulsion,
that validity and efficacy are largely attributable to the func-
tioning of the newly-institutionalized international forum. As for
the future, it is a good bet that such an interchange among states-
men as is promoted by the General Assembly may be the effective
means of developing, registering, and putting into application
new standards and principles of international relations as they
enter into the sphere of political feasibility. The grand debate
holds open the possibility of the progressive development of
world policies for dealing with world problems.

The ultimate significance of the international talk-shop may lie
in its provision of a sweeping look at the state of the world and an
opportunity for the formulation and expression of a world point
of view. However, its more immediate functional role fias less to
do with a nascent global entity than with existing national
entities. Regular and extensive multilateral political debate is
presently most important for its impact upon national foreign
policies. The measurement and evaluation of that impact is a
hazardous undertaking which only an inexcusably brash fellow
would claim to be able to carry out with precision and certainty.
No one can know just how much difference and exactly what kind
of difference the practice of general deliberation in established
international assemblies has made in the diplomatic history of the
tv arid since 1920. Yet, it is indisputable that the habit of dropping

THE GRAND DEBATE APPROACH TO PEACE 329

foreign policies into an international pot before serving them is a
matter o£ some importance.

The educational value of the international forum may well be
one of its most significant attributes. A foreign policy can be only
as good as the informational basis upon which it is formulated. A
sound foreign policy is designed to promote a purpose, which may
be unilaterally determined within the national privacy of a state;
but it must also be made with reference to a situation, viewed in
the context of other and possibly conflicting policies within which
it must operate, and shaped in accordance with an estimate of the
probable reactions which it will engender among other states. For
meeting these latter requirements, the facilities provided by a
global assembly are serviceable if not indispensable; indeed, even
the purposive element may properly be subjected to refinement
on the basis of the evaluation of needs and possibilities which
the grand debate may promote.

The United Nations offers to statesmen the means of identifying
the central problems of international life with which foreign
policy ought to be concerned. It affords the opportunity of learn-
ing much of what needs to be known about the intentions of
other states, and of judging the strengths and weaknesses of the
policy positions assumed by other states. It provides a laboratory
for testing the acceptability and effectiveness of a proposed line of
policy. What are the conditions to be dealt with, the obstacles to
be overcome, the dangers to be avoided? What are the competitive
policies to be defeated, the demands to be resisted, the appeals
to be countered? What can a state get away with? What are the
requirements for evoking cooperation? What are the sensitivities
to be respected, the misconceptions to be rectified, the ambitions
to be taken into account? The quality of a state’s foreign policy
depends heavily upon the discovery of accurate answers to such
questions as these, and the institutions of multilateral diplomacy
are admirably suited to facilitate that discovery.

The present postwar era is one in which it is peculiarly im-
portant that national foreign policies should be subjected to the
educational influences of a continuous international political
round table. The stakes of diplomacy have been enormously in-
creased; viewed from the standpoint of either the global interest
or the interests of particular nations, the price of failure to de-

SWORDS INTO PCOWSMARI*

scion wise and realistic national foreign policies has become well
nt K h intolerable. The leading roles in world politics
taken user by two colossi which are relatively inexperienced in
the ways of diplomacy. One of them, the Soviet Union, is deeply
committed to an ideological orthodoxy which may tempt it to
cling with diustioiis tenacity to gi>als that cannot 1* reached
without pulling down the temple of civilization upon the heads
of all nations, itself included, ami which may so distort tlic Soviet
view of the rest of the world as to present Soviet policy ftom con-
forming to the requirement* of political reality. The other major
power, the United States, hasing only recently emerged from us
moated casilc of isolationism, is conftontcd with the supreme
challenge of developing the capacity for responsible ami effective
leadership while still struggling to tasi oil the habits and emanci-
pate itself from the viewpoints which derive from its anehoritic
heritage. The mtcrnaiiniial stage is becoming increasingly clut-
tered with new players, each of them with much to learn about
the conduct of international aflairs. and each of them injecting
new uncertainties into die political situation with which foreign
policy must deal. The complexities of world polities arc growing
by leaps and founds, and the difficulties of adjusting foreign
policy to the shifting realities of the political situation are as
burdensome as the failure to achieve that adjustment is perilous.

In this situation, the existence of an organized international
forum is or vital signi Rea nee. From the American point of view,
it is important that all nations, including the United Slates,
should learn as much afout the intentions, the pretensions, the
expectations, and the apprehensions of the Soviet Union as can
he gleaned from Soviet participation in the grand debate. Con-
versely. it is important to American as well as to global interests
that the Soviet Union should do some serious listening, imbibing
awareness of the facts of international life, learning to appreciate
the dangers of pressing too hard against the sensitive area of na-
tional determination to remain free, and confronting realistically
the political evidence of the defensive solidarity of the Western
bloc. In so far as the Soviet Union exhibits ruthless contempt
for the standards of civilized order, it damns itself with infinitely
greater effectiveness than American propaganda could develop: in
so far as it demonstrates a capacity to influence and attract other

PROACH TO PEACE

531

THE GRAND DEBATE AP.. -- -

states, it clarifies (or American policy-makers the nature of the
challenge with which they are confronted; in so far as the USSR
comes to recognize the challenge with which it is confronted, its
policy is exposed to the potentiality of sober restraint.

It might be remarked that all this applies equally to the case
of Communist China. It is an unhappy possibility that the most
convincing demonstration of the utility of setting hostile powers
into the midst of a multilateral debate may be provided by the
failure to carry out that policy with respect to the new rulers of
the Chinese mainland. Whatever may be the merits of the Ameri-
can insistence upon excluding Red China from the United Na-
tions, it is clear that this policy deprives the United States and
fellow members of a significant opportunity for learning abou
Chinese purposes and policies and for teaching Red China abo
Western purposes and policies-a deprivation for which ound-
about and backdoor American contacts with Red China canno

does no, lie entirely in the

facilities which it provides for knowing the enemy

that the enemy knows what he ought to know The.ntern. iona

forum i, equally important a, " f ° her sriLk in the pres-
are intended to elicit the coopera t primary

ent stage of international relations, it can ia formula-

function of the United Nations to

tion of a global policy " £££7 Z more modes, one of
policies; the practicable J hich m3y se rve to induce

invoking the realistic conside fieilitating the develop-

restraint in great power beha '' l °^ a " rat | on in the relations
mem of such areas of world. If we can

of states as are posable “ P thc characteristic fallacy of our
resist the temptation to a P ^ Unitcd Nations cannot
time, the proposition tna thc West it cannot do

heal the breach between t ie .* w ill become evident

anything of B enuin ' ^significant,

that these areas are by no m ^ thc j m pact of multilateral

From the American po»n ; s Q f critical importance

debate upon United States "" "J”,,.,, political values short of
for the achievement ot an „lobal war. The United States

the elimination of the an 0 er

THE GRAND DEBATE APPROACH TO PfACE 333

rather than a substitute for the ordinary processes of diplomacy.
It does not provide governments with all they need to know for
the successful conduct of international relations, nor does it re-
lieve them of the responsibility for refusing to believe all that
it enables them to hear. It is Certainly not a global parliament,
capable of adopting an authoritative and effective world policy
to supersede the tangle of national foreign policies, nor does it
provide a super-conciliator, able to step into the midst of the
cold war, knock American and Soviet heads together, and set the
giants to doing the world’s work in harmonious collaboration. But
it does provide a setting within which national foreign policies
may be measured against such rudimentary general standards as
governments are capable of formulating in agreed terms, sub-
jected to the realities of the political forces which they are des-
tined to confront, exposed to the demands of states whose ac-
quiescence or support is desired, and consolidated in the degree
that states are prepared to abdicate their unilateral roles in inter-
national affairs.

When the United Nations is evaluated in these terms, it is no
abject confession to say that member states seek to use the or-
ganization for the promotion of their national interests rather than
the global interest. Of course they do; whatever promise the
United Nations holds for a brighter political future derives from
the fact that when states attempt to promote national policies
through the United Nations, they subject themselves to a process
which increases the probability that their policies will at least
fall within the lower limits of international tolerability and at
most conform to the higher requirements of international ac-
ceptability. The national urge to use the United Nations is the
essential basis of the possibility that it can be of some interna-
tional use. The improvement of foreign policies is a more modest
enterprise than the abolition of foreign policies, but it may be for
that reason a more significant one.

Looking somewhat beyond the immediate sm.at.on, we may
find that the general political processes of international organise,
lion have a potential function which is considerably less modes,
than the one described. Assuming the success of multilatetal
and other efforts to induce moderation and restraint in Soviet
behavior, and to inject political into Hie exercise of

334

RF S

SWORDS INTO rt.OWSH A

leadership in the non-Communist world by the United States, n
is conceivable that a situation of roughly equivalent strength may
be developed which will provide the foundation for a genuine
attempt at accommodation between the two sides in the cold war.
In this eventuality, the availability of the United Nations as a
meeting ground and of its forum as a place for the registration of
willingness to negotiate a modus vivendi may be of vital im-
portance. Great powers do not easily repudiate their mutual
animosities, and they may be heavily dependent upon the Unite
Nations to provide the context within which fruitful discussions
may be possible, and to serve as a quasi neutral agency to which
points of disagreement may be referred for multilateral decision.
The contribution of the United Nations to future amelioration of
great power relations may lie partly in its institutional readiness
to undertake projects analogous to the League’s administration o
such contested areas as the Saar and Danzig, the abortive project
of Security Council supervision over the Trieste Territory, an
the accomplished feat of General Assembly legislation concerning
the disposition of former Italian colonies. In short, the Unite
Nations may provide acceptable substitutes for substantive agree-
ment on specific issues and for concessions to each other by the
major antagonists, as well as encouragement for the working out
of agreements and compromises.

Additionally, the world organization may have the essentia
function of preventing possible great power negotiations from
degenerating into a cynical carving up of the world to suit the
interests of the giants— of upholding the proposition that The
cold war is no private show of the great powers. The whole world
is involved, and no settlement will ever be possible which does
not take account of world interests.” 1 The negative task of p re "
venting the wrong kind of settlement may be as important as the
positive task of facilitating some kind of settlement.

In order to be ready to play this potentially vital role in t e
process of accommodation to which the course of the cold war
may conceivably lead, the United Nations must do more than
simply continue to exist. It must maintain its internationa

' A H. Feller, United Nations and World Community (Boston: Little, Brown.
1952). p. 122.

THE GRAND DEBATE APPROACH TO PEACE 335

quality, so as to provide a reasonable basis for the conception that
it is an agency of the larger community which envelops both East
and West. Considering the reserve function of the organization,
Sir Gladwyn Jebb observed that "it would be tragic if the United
Nations were rendered incapable of playing this great role either
because it had been broken up by the departure of a significant
group of Members, or by being discredited with either party
through being identified too closely with one or other side in the
major conflicts of our time." a

From this standpoint, the primary validity of the criticism of
efforts to make the United Nations subserve national interests is
not that such efforts represent present neglect of the global in-
terest, but that they threaten to undermine the capacity of the
organization to grasp future opportunities for promoting accom-
modation of great power interests. American leaders, in par-
ticular, have the delicate task of using the United Nations to
assist in the development of situations of 'Western strength, with-
out at the same time destroying its usefulness for promoting the
successful outcome of the negotiations for which the situations of
strength are designed to create the political basis.

It may be that the most significant political task of the United
Nations is to remain in reserve, keeping its institutional resources
in readiness for the day that may or may not come, when the
conflicts of the cold war shall have become ripe for politicaf ad-
justment.

The Dangers of the Grand Debate

Thus far the values, actual and potential, of the general politi-
cal forum which is provided by the United Nations bate been
stressed. It remains to be noted that the grand debate has its
definite demerits as well as its limited but significant merits as a
contribution of international organization to the conduct of
global diplomacy.

In the first place, multilateral assembly halls tend almost in-
esurably to become huge wind tunnels, channels tor the release of

— n, f „t ,b. 1’nitcd K.tion.,- I-l.m./i.-.l No.onbct 1*.

P 519.

336 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

enormous supplies oE international hot air. Sheer talkiness is one
of the leading characteristics of delegates to international con-
ferences. As Andr£ Maurois described proceedings in the League,

Every year ... a great and sacred orator . . . preaches before
the Assembly of Nations a solemn sermon on the text of the
Covenant. Then the Congregation sings its favourite psalms: Psalm
159, Disarmament-Security; Psalm J3 7, Must Politics, Gentlemen,
have precedence over Economics? It is an excellent thing for the
disbeliever to undergo Church discipline, for ceremonial of any
kind lulls to sleep and calms the passions. ... At Geneva the art
of saying nothing has almost reached perfection.®

The United Nations has certainly not effected drastic changes in
this regard.

Concerning mere diplomatic verbosity, it is seemly that all men
who live under national governments, and particularly those who
live under democratic governments, should adopt a philosophic
and tolerant attitude; the United Nations does not compare un-
favorably in this respect with, for instance, the United States
Congress. The wasting of human breath in the international
forum is not exceptional, and it is at worst an occasion for im-
patience, not alarm.

Nevertheless, this phenomenon does have its dangers. The
verbiage of the grand debate tends to be heavily freighted with
pious protestations, and it is essential that a high discount rate be
applied by those who listen to it. Surely, the governments of the
world are not so uniformly devoted to international peace, web
fare, and justice as their official speech-makers in the United Na-
tions would have us believe. Allowing for the operation of both
natural and acquired skepticism, there is still the possibility that
statesmen and the publics whose opinion cannot be flouted by
statesmen may be unduly influenced by the fair words which all
too often reflect the propagandists skill rather than the real
policy of governments. International organization has developed
its stock of conventional themes, and national spokesmen are
likely to say what they are expected to say rather than what their
governments can be realistically expected to do. This means that
the critical faculties must be kept in order, not only to spot the
'Died jn David Thomson, Democracy in France (London: Oxford University
Press. 194(5). p. 204.

THE GRAND DEBATE APPROACH TO PEACE 337

aggressive intent which lurks behind pacific proclamations, but
also to discover the insistence upon sovereign autonomy which
lies behind declarations of international solidarity, the obsession
With national interest which is cloaked in globalistic phrases, and
the unwillingness to act which is obscured by calls for ambitious
international programs. The grand debate can easily become an
instrument for the fostering of illusions about the state of the
world and the policies of the nations.

The United Nations is not only a speech-making organization;
it is also a resolution-passing organization. There is a very real
danger that a congregation of delegates will prefer the formula-
tion of resolutions to the grappling for a solution of problems,
and that external observers may mistake the former for the latter.
This is not to deny the significance of recommendatory action
and hortatory injunction, which are all too often dismissed with
contempt by critics who bring to the study of international or-
ganization an oddly doctrinaire conviction that nothing counts
in political matters except a legal fiat. But it is essential to be on
guard against the fallacious equating of formal admonitions with
definitive resolution of issues. Given the tradition of unrealism
which lias marked American conceptions of international rela-
tions, it is perhaps especially important that Americans should
linger on the thought that a speech is not a policy, and a resolu-
tion is not a settlement.

It is hard to know whether the attractive verbiage of pious
speeches and hopeful resolutions or the ugly phraseology of vi-
tuperative exchanges constitutes the more damaging output of the
international forum. It seems unfair to damn the United Nations
impartially if it does, and if it does not, reflect the bitterness of
cold war conflicts, as the Wall Street Journal seemed to do in
1949, when it alleged that the organization had “degenerated
from a useless debating forum to a mutual vilification society." *
Yet, it is true that high-flown oratory can be misleading and low-
down billingsgate can be exacerbating; if the former discourages
looking problems in the eye, the latter is equivalent to spitting
disputants in the eye.

The practice of unrestrained denunciation which has gained

‘Cued in John Madaurin. The United Nations and Power Politics (London:
George Alien and Unwin. 1951). p. 1-

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

33o

currency in United Nations debates may be defended on the
ground that diplomatic candor is better than the salted hyp*r, y
of traditional diplomatic niceties. Some of the bitter charg
true, and in any event it is better that feelings of p ofound ho
tility and distrust should be deposed than concealed. Morrow^
some comfort may be derived from the observation that .states
have developed a capacity for accepting insults without feeling
honor-bound to respond hy lighting; whatever else international
organization may have done to sovereignty, it has certainly
it less thin-skinned than in days gone by. Mutual vilification,
it stops with that, is surely preferable to mutual bombardmen -
On the other hand, the combination of excessively laudatory
descriptions of a state’s own policy and extravagantly denuncia-
tory comments on the policy of rival states does not a U P
a demonstration of candor. This tactic can hardly do otherwise
than feed the tendency toward -monumental self-righteousness
which exists in all nations, and stimulate holier-than-thou a i-
tudes which are not conducive to political adjustment. T e open
diplomacy of international organization, with its open mvitatio
to self-praise and other-condemnation, has undoubtedly contn
uted to the artificial moralization of the issues of world politics
and the mounting of moralistic high-horses by governments an
their publics. Many contemporary problems would quite probaD y
yield more readily to negotiation in the realistic terms of com-
peting national interests than to debate in the idealistic terms o
international moral principle.

The United Nations cannot be held responsible for the exu -
ence of bitter conflicts or the degradation of the language of ip °*
macy. But it does offer facilities and opportunities for statesmen
to exploit which may possibly contribute more to the aggravation
of conflicts and the rigidification of positions than to the creation
of a climate of accommodation. The Wilsonian ideal of venti a
ing problems with the fresh air of world public opinion is con
stantly challenged by the reality of statesmen venting their sp een
in the international assembly hall.

Finally, the grand debate is subject to the danger of degencr
atin" into an exhibition of international nosiness. This is the re

•I6id, p. 26.

THE GRAND DEBATE APPROACH TO PEACE 339

verse side o£ the coin of responsibility to the international com-
munity. The establishment of the principle that the collectivity
of nations is legitimately concerned with all that affects the com-
mon destiny of mankind represents real advance toward the ideal
of world order, but this cannot be said of the tendency of gov-
ernments to convert the United Nations into a cover for their
irresponsible meddling in the affairs of other states, or to lead it
into the futility of action designed to embarrass their opponents
rather than promote settlement of issues. The political usefulness
of international organization depends upon the willingness of
statesmen to respect the fine distinction between the ideal of per-
mitting multilateral agencies to get their hands on the issues that
count, and the abuse of forcing them to stick their noses into
matters that had better be left alone.

When all is said and done, the conclusion emerges that the
fostering of the collective consideration of the state of the world
and the collective discussion of the politics of international rela-
tions are a major contribution of international organization to the
cause of world order. The grand debate is no panacea. It does not
alter the fact that the ultimate responsibility for determining the
course of world affairs is vested in a multitude of states, and par-
ticularly in two great powers. Nevertheless, it has a significance
which cannot be gainsaid. As Werner Levi has put it,

social order is largely created by developing the habit of adjust-
ment and compromise in many informal ways as well as by the
establishment of a legislature and a police force. The importance of
diplomacy by conference, bilaterally or multilaterally, cannot be
exaggerated. Indeed the sponsoring of constant communication be-
tween nations is the most useful mission a world organization can
perform in a sovereign nation-state system*

Debate alone will not eliminate disorder. But human experience
suggests that the kind of order for which decent men yearn can-
not be established and maintained except by means which involve
the processes of deliberation.

* Fundamentals of » arid Organxzat, 0 „. p S3 Copyright. 1950. by the L'nu^
o( Minnesota.

310

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARE:

SUGGESTED READINGS

Burton, Margaret E., The Assembly of the League of Nations, Chi-
cago. University of Chicago Press, 1941.

Cohen, Benjamin V., "The Impact of the United Nations on United
States Foreign Policy,” International Organization, May 1951, pp-
274-281.

Evatt, Herbert V., The Task of Nations, New York: Duell, Sloan and
Pearce, 1949.

Jebb, Sir Gladwyn, "The Role of the United Nations," International
Organization, November 1952, pp. 509-520.

Rothwell, Charles E., "International Organization and World Poli-
tics,” International Organization, November 1949, pp. 605-619.

Rudzinski, Aleksander W-, “The Influence of the United Nations on
Soviet Policy," International Organization, May 1951, pp. 282-299.

Trusteeship as an
Approach to Peace

International organization in the twentieth century lias become
progressively involved in the development and expression of a
new approach to the ordering of relationships between estab-
lished sovereign powers and dependent peoples. The traditional
system of colonialism, under which the great mass of the non-
white, non-European segment of mankind was assigned a passive
role in world politics and subjected to the acquisitive and hege-
monic policies of European empire-builders, has lost its unchal-
lenged position in the sphere of international relations. Trustee-
ship is the term adopted here as the all-inclusive symbol of the
movement to utilize international organization as an instrument
for die modification, transformation, or elimination of coloni-
alism.

The Theory of Trusteeship

This phase of the work of international organization is based
in large part upon the assumption that colonialism is one of the
factors making for war in the modem world; hence, trusteeship
is justified in terms of the general war-prevention function of in-
ternational organization. This concept was formally stated when
the drafters of the United Nations Charter listed the furtherance

q SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

on.nl peace and security as ll.e first
objectives" of the special trusteeship system to be created under
S aosptccs of the nets' organlration.. The association be w«n
colomahsm and tsar, and between the mod.fication of eolomahtm
and the promotion of peace, may be analyzed in several different

t'm he argued that tsar is the outcome of rivalry among
imperialist powers, the product of maldistribution of colonies,
and of confi, cling ambition, to stabilize and to upset the balance
of colonial holdings. This thesis has become a significant feature
of die twentieth-century version of Marxism, although it was
i men ted by— and has never been the exclusive property o
Marxists. From a proper Marxist point of view, imperialist nya ry
is the organic product of the capitalist system, and ‘he abolition
of sear therefore awaits the destruction of capitalism. The c •
ccpt of trusteeship, on the other hand, deals with the fact rat 1
than the causation of competition among colonial powers; it po*
tulatcs the diminution of conflict over colonies not by translorrn-
ing the economic and political foundations of the powers, ut J Y
establishing such international controls over the exploitation an
administration of colonies as to make colonial holdings less attrac-
tive to the national self-interest of states and to render owner
ship" of colonies essentially irrelevant to the struggle over t ie
balance of power. Presumably, states svill be less, interested in
grabbing up bits of empire if colonial possession is transformc
from a privilege to be exploited into a responsibility to be s iou

ucrcu. - r m

Alternatively, the danger of svar-stcmming-from-colonia
may be ascribed to the tendency of subjugated peoples and t ieir
sympathizers to develop a revolutionary reaction against t inf
rulers. Imperialism breeds colonial nationalism; dependent peo*
pies learn to hale their oppressors; bloody rebellion, possi > Y
turning into a bluer struggle of the whole colored world agams
the smugly imperious European community, is the ultimate pros
poet. Acceptance of this version of the colonial problem >s rc
fleeted in the concern of trusteeship for remedying the abuses.ani
lessening the exploitative aspects of alien rule. Dependency is to
be made tolerable, to as not to stimulate revolt, and it •*

» Stink 7«.

TRUSTEESHIP AS AN APPROACH TO PEACE 343

made terminable through processes o£ peaceful development, so
as to provide hope rather than frustration for aspiring peoples.

Still another form of analysis is one which emphasizes neither
the possibility of war among rival imperialists nor the danger of
conflict between the possessors and the possessed, but views colo-
nialism as both a symptom and a cause of an unhealthy situation
in the global body politic. In this analysis, war is traced not so
much to conflicts as to conditions; it is treated as an outgrowth
of circumstances rather than an act of policy. Peace is a function
of a good society, in which all component groups enjoy justice,
share in a mutuality of respect, participate in the values of eco-
nomic and social progress, and move toward political maturity.
This ideal cannot he reached so long as the system of colonial
overlordship keeps the map spotted with blighted areas, inhabited
by peoples which are denied both the advantages and the respon-
sibilities of full citizenship in the human commonwealth. Hence,
the task of trusteeship is to help make the world fit for peace by
launching a kind of international slum clearance project, and
promoting the progressive development of peoples which have
been left behind and pushed to the rear.

The approach of international organization to the colonial
question has rested in some degree upon each of these versions of
the relationship between colonialism and war. The reasoning has
seldom been made explicit, but the operations of the League and
the United Nations have been animated by the conviction that
international delving into the colonial field is a means of getting
at some of the roots of the problem of war.

It must be added, however, that there is a growing sentiment
that international intervention to promote the amelioration of
colonial evils and the opening up of a full range of opportunities
for dependent peoples is a good thing in itself, to be justified by
its intrinsic values rather than its efficacy as a means to peace. The
most devoted champions of trusteeship would probably not suffer
an appreciable loss of enthusiasm if it could be incontrovertibly
established that international action in this field is wholly irrele-
vant to the problem of war. It seems to be the case that any proj-
ect requiring the instrumentality of international organization,
however worthy it may be, must be put forward as a contribution
to world peace; and it hardly stretches the point to say that any

$WOI

IS INTO PLOWSHARES

scheme for international action which is presented in those terms,
however far-fetched its relationship to the problem of war may
be, is likely to attract considerable support among statesmen
whose business it is to determine the functional concerns of inter-
national organization. Given the respectability of the notion that
the causes of war must be varied and complex, and the lack of
scientific certitude as to the exact list of causes which contribute
to war. the way is open for anyone with the liarcst minimum o
theoretical ingenuity to develop a plausible case for the peace-
treating potentialities of virtually any pet project.

In any case, whether because of genuine comiction that it offers
a useful approach to the citation of the conditions of peace or
because of considerations only verbally linkrd to that legitimizing
concept, the formulators of the terms of reference of international
organization have progressively brought the trusteeship idea into
the official international program.

Basically, the concept of trusteeship involves denial of the right
of soscreign irresponsibility and the legitimacy of unmitigated
self-interest as the guiding principle of the policy of possessor
states in their dealings svith dependent peoples. It is an assertion
of the claim of the international community to determine rela-
tions between imperial powers and their colonies in accordance
svith collective judgment as to what is best for the peoples of non-
self-governing areas and for the svorld at large. Trusteeship rep-
resents an attempt to transform colonies from bits of private prop-
erty subject to exploitation by their owners to parts of the public
domain subject to development in the general interest. It aims at
nuking dependent peoples temporary wards and their rulers re-
sponsible agents of world society.

Both in theory and in practice, trusteeship reflects a funda-
mental dualism of origin and motivation. It is, on the one hand,
a culmination of lilieral humanitarian trends which extend far
luck into the era of European colonialism. In its insistence on
the moral imperative to protect native peoples of subjugated
areas against mistreatment and to promote their welfare by p m, ‘
the action, it derisci from suds various roots as Vitoria's admo-
nition that the sixteenth century conquests by his country. Spam,
could l>e justified only by government "for the welfare and in the

TRUSTEESHIP AS AN APPROACH TO PEACE 345

interests o£ the Indians and not merely for the profit of the
Spaniards”; 2 Burke’s recognition of Britain’s ethical responsibility
in the government of colonial peoples; the upsurge of humani-
tarian reformism among nineteenth-century churchmen and secu-
larists, liberals and socialists, romanticists and rationalists; the
Wilsonian dedication to the precept of national self-determina-
tion; and the Roosevehian vision of a New Deal for the world’s
underprivileged. In large measure, the effort to promote the de-
velopment of humane and enlightened policies toward colonial
peoples is a constructive response to criticism and rebelliousness,
a product of interaction between the high ideals and the bad
conscience of the West.

But trusteeship is a political device as well as a moral crusade.
To say this is not merely to admit what is clearly true — that in
practice its humanitarian idealism is diluted by the infusion of
liberal quantities of political interests, so that international moral-
ity tends to become simply a kind of insubstantial film, floating
on the deep waters of the politics of colonialism. Certainly, trus-
teeship lends itself to hypocrisy as well as to reformism, and to
the ideological decoration as well as to the genuine mitigation of
colonial rule; as Salvador de Madariaga characterized its impact
in the League era, "the old hag of colonization puts on a fig leaf
and calls itself mandate." * But the intrusion of political factors
is not simply an instance of the contamination of a pure moral
concept which should set idealistic heads shaking regretfully and
realistic heads wagging knowingly. The political derivation and
coloration of trusteeship are integral to its nature.

Trusteeship is, in the terminology of H. Duncan Hall, a phe-
nomenon of the “international frontier,” * a new and more sophis-
ticated form of the device which, in a variety of models, Tanging
from buffer states to areas under international administration, has
served as the instrument by which the powers have sought to
establish stability in the zones where their interests converge. It
is, in these terms, a scheme for protecting the world's interest in
peace by padding the points of potential conflict among the great

•Scon, Law, the Stale, and the International Community, II, 277 278.

• The World's Design (London: George Alien and Unwin. 1058). p. 7.

‘See Mandates, Dependencies and Trusteeship (Washington: Catnegle Endow-
ment for International Peace, 1948). pp 5 26.

340 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

powers. Additionally, trusteeship may be regarded as a project for
compromising the old claims of the European world-rulers and
the new demands of young states and emergent peoples, eager 3nd
impatient to undo the Europeanization of world politics. In us
essential nature, trusteeship is a concept of political adjustment
quite as much as an ideal of humanitarian advance.

Trusteeship and the League

As I have indicated, both the moral and the political aspects
of the idea of trusteeship are deeply rooted in the European tra-
dition. During the nineteenth century, the colonial powers of
Europe took the first halting steps toward giving that concept a
place among the operative principles of international politics. On
occasions ranging from the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to the Ber-
lin Conference in 1885 and the Brussels Conference in 1890, they
exchanged declarations and undertook commitments relating to
the exploitation of Africa, in which they developed a joint ap-
proach to the suppression of the slave trade and a collective recog-
nition of their responsibility for maintaining some semblance of
civilized standards in their dealings with both colonial rivals and
colonial victims. This scries of diplomatic developments did little
more than project the idea of institutionalizing international con-
cern with the conduct of competitive colonialism onto the twen-
tieth-century stage. It did not in any fundamental way alter the
fact that such sense of moral responsibility as a European state
might have for behaving as if its overseas holdings constituted a
“sacred trust" was a product of its own national conscience, and
an obligation for the performance of which the state was answer-
able almost exclusively to that same national conscience. 8

The establishment of the Mandate System by the League of
Nations marked the effective beginning of systematic interna-
tional intrusion into the workings of colonialism. The incorpora-
tion of Article 22 in the Covenant constituted the first explicit
declaration of the authority and responsibility of the international
community for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of “peo-
ples not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous con-

•Cf Georg Schwarzenberger, Power Politics (2nd ed; New YoiV: Praeger. 1951).
pp 648 652.

348 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

Lloyd George, 7 against the evils of uncontrolled colonial exploita-
tion, as well as the political urge, equally basic to the trusteeship
concept, to establish safeguards against the dangers of unrestricted
colonial competition.

The scope of the experiment in trusteeship was defined nega-
tively by the political capacity of undefeated powers to withhold
their possessions, and positively by the political necessity of the
Allies to respect their wartime no-annexation pledges and to defer
to the anti-imperialist public opinion within their own ranks;
thus, the Mandate System was applied exclusively to territories
wrenched from the defeated empires. The magnitude of the au-
thority conferred upon the international organs of the system was
determined by the interaction among devotion to the principle of
international responsibility for the guardianship of the commu-
nity’s wards, skepticism as to the practicability of direct inter-
national administration, sensitivity of colonial powers to asper-
sions upon their trustworthiness as bearers of the white man’s
burden, and resistance on their part to the excessive development
of the anomaly that sovereign states should be ordered about by
an international agency. The upshot of this interaction -was that
the administration of the mandated areas was undertaken by
members of the triumphant coalition, on terms formulated by
agreement among themselves, and that the League was conceded
a supervisory competence which was limited to the powers of in-
terrogation, recommendation, and criticism.

At worst, the Mandate System was an international disguise for
the surreptitious continuation of colonialism;® even if this damn-
ing judgment be accepted, the fact that the powers found it neces-
sary to camouflage the annexation and subjection of colonies to
their sovereign control is indicative of the rising significance of
the trusteeship idea. An intermediate interpretation would sug-
gest that it was a compromise between traditional imperialism
and futuristic trusteeship, permitting the victors to keep the spoils
but denying them the clear title of ownership which would legiti-
mize their spurning all efforts to hold them responsible for con-

* ibid., pp 522 525. 5S2 535; Rmsell, Theories of international Relations, pp.
415 <19.

•Cf. Georg Schvarzenberger, A Manual of International Law (2nd ed.; London:
Sfftent. 1950}, p. IS4,

TRUSTEESHIP AS AN APPROACH TO PEACE

549

forming to standards of colonial policy established by the League.
At best, the system was the small-scale beginning of a revolution-
ary transformation of the status of dependent peoples in the mod-
ern world, the first installment of the victory of trusteeship.

In an important sense, each of these views has been confirmed
by the subsequent development of the issue of colonialism in
relation to international organization, and particularly by the
trends which have been manifested in the United Nations. It has
become increasingly necessary to mask the conquest and control
of foreign territories and peoples, and the acceptance of a man-
date — or, in the new terminology, a trusteeship arrangement has

continued to serve that purpose. For instance, the United States
Government was able to reach internal agreement on the project
of negotiating a United Nations trusteeship for the Pacific Islands
formerly under Japanese mandate only by convincing officials of
the military services and departments that such an arrangement
would give the United States, as administering authority, rights
of sovereign control fully equivalent to those which might be
gained by forthright annexation. In fact, mandate or trusteeshin
arrangements have come to be regarded as rather too thin cloaki
for the concealment of naked hegemony in the mid-twentieth
century; the various ingenuities of satellitism have produced
more popular stock of synthetic fabrics for meeting th c req„j rc
merits of modesty among imperial overlords.

On the other hand, there is abundant evidence ol tfi e r ..
of the compromise between colonialism and trusteesh ip which has
characterized the international situation since the inau-mrar'
o£ the League Mandate System. Winston Churchill provided °
splendid sample of this evidence at the Yalta Conference, when 1 *
reacted to a proposal for creating a trusteeship system \n . * C
sede the Mandate System by asserting hotly “that he did not
with one single word of the report on trusteeships. , I
that under no circumstances would he ever consent m 8ait *
fifty nations thrusting interfering fingers into the lif e », . • or
of the British Empire. As long as he was Minister he 5 CnCe
yield one scrap of their heritage. . . ." The British Pr,' fIIC . ”f V f r
ter was reassured by Secretary Stettinius’ statement ' mw '
jected machinery was to be designed for dealing with u-J?

350 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

taken from the enemy, not with British possessions, and he then
said that Britain “had no objection if the question of trusteeship
was to be considered in relation to enemy territory.” 9
Here, in a nutshell, is proof that insistence upon the un-
restricted right to maintain unilateral control of colonies was not
dead in 1945, that observation of the Mandate System's operations
for a quarter-century had not convinced so realistic a statesman as
Churchill that international supervision of colonial rule was
either a convenient fraud or an innocuous fiction, and that the
major Western powers were still unprepared to let the principle
of trusteeship usurp more than a small comer of the colonial field.
IE trusteeship had been proved an ideological disguise capable of
facilitating the perpetuation of colonialism, the colonial powers
should have jumped at the chance to apply it to all their posses-
sions: if it had been proved a bit of pious nonsense which
changed nothing, Churchill should not have been so sensitive to
the danger that it might be applied to the British Empire; if it
had been proved a great blessing to dependent peoples, statesmen
who were prepared to espouse the principle that the uplift of
human underdogs was a sacred responsibility of the international
community should not have been insistent upon confining its
beneficent impact to a few peoples which were fortunate enough
to have been parts of the losing side in global wars. The con-
clusion must be that the old colonial spirit maintained its vitality
throughout the League experiment, that the Mandate System in-
vested the trusteeship idea with significant meaning, and that
dedication to the ideal of equipping the civilized world to do its
duty by the backward peoples was heavily qualified by political
considerations. In short, colonialism and trusteeship were co-
existent realities in the period from the League's beginning to
its demise.

Finally, the optimistic view that the Mandate System was a
genuine beginning, albeit a very limited realization, of the appli-
cation of trusteeship has been confirmed by the steady develop-
ment of the essential principles and the necessary mechanisms of
international supervision in the colonial field. Whatever its limi-
tations, the League's enterprise in this area did initiate the inter *
Nationalization of the trusteeship idea. It accepted the concept of

•Ten ot Yalta Papen, Xtw York Times, March 17. 1033.

TRUSTEESHIP AS AN APPROACH TO PEACE 351

the Dual Mandate, whereby a colonial power is considered a
trustee of the interests of both the colonial peoples and the world
at large in the exercise of its governing functions, and sought to
give this concept decisive meaning by providing a world agency
to which accountability should be Tendered and through which
responsibility should be made effective. This was, in essence, a
denial of the adequacy of national trusteeship and an assertion
of the principle that if a state is to be responsible for interests
other than its own it must be held responsible to entities other
than itself. The League system initiated the institutionalization
of trusteeship, casting moral obligations into the form of legal
commitments, and developing regularized means by which the
performance of obligations should be subjected to scrutiny and
supervision.

These innovations constituted what have proved to be the
foundations of a rising structure of trusteeship. In the course of
League history, they were solidified and elaborated, and even
when the League collapsed, they remained intact as the bases
upon which building should start anew. The final evidence of
the meaningfulness of the League's approach to the implemen-
tation of trusteeship lies in the fact that it has served as the
starting point for the much more ambitious approach of the
United Nations.

Trusteeship and the United Nations

When the new structure of world organization svas designed at
San Francisco, a formal Trusteeship System was projected as a
rechristened and somewhat revised version of the Mandate Sys-
tem . 10 The basic points of similarity were obvious. The range of
the system was to be restricted in much the same manner as that
of its predecessor; it should, in principle, apply to territories pre-
viously held under mandate and not yet independent, territories
wrested from the Axis powers as a result of the war, and such
other territories as might be handed over to it by their possessors.
The overriding principle, as in the case of the Mandate System,
was that the operators of the international laboratory should be
dependent upon the will of colonial powers, singly or jointly ex*

“See the United Nations Chatter, Articles 75-91.

352 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

pressed, for the provision o£ materials upon which to perform
their experimental work-

in practice, the map of the Trusteeship System has become a
netv edition, revised but not drastically altered, of the Mandate
map. The Middle Eastern sector has been eliminated, through
the rise to independence of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and
Israel; the Union of South Africa has stubbornly asserted its
legal right to withhold its former mandate. Southwest Africa,
from the new system; the United States has replaced Japan as the
responsible administrator in the Pacific Islands north of the equa-
tor; and Italian Somaliland has been added as a trusteeship area
under Italian administration. Otherwise, the picture remains the
same, with Britain, France, and Belgium continuing in charge^ of
six African areas, and Australia and New Zealand maintaining
their mandatory positions in three island areas of the South Pa-
cific. The political obstacles to the extension of trusteeship to
territories firmly established in colonial empires and not recently
affected by changes of sovereignty have remained insuperable.
The Trusteeship System represents, as did its predecessor, the
very limited willingness of the colonial powers to superimpose a
formal trusteeship structure upon their administration of de-
pendent areas.

The pattern of the Mandate System was also generally followed
by the designers of the Trusteeship System in respect to provi-
sions for the actual administration and the exercise of the super-
visory function in areas subject to its operation. The Charter
stated the possibility that the United Nations should itself under-
take to serve as the governing authority in particular territories,
but it preserved the normal working principle, so far uniformly
observed, that the actual administration of trusteeship areas
should be entrusted to the government of a state. In practice, this
has meant that, under the United Nations as under the League,
states which have had sufficient claim to or hold upon dependent
territories to rank as the parties whose consent is necessary for
placing those territories under the international system have been
accepted as the self-designated administering authorities. The one
exception arose in the case of Italian Somaliland, when the Gen-
eral Assembly, exercising a legislative competence delegated to it
by the great powers which had destroyed Italy’s sovereignty over

TRUSTEESHIP AS AN APPROACH TO PEACE 353

its former colonies, made a discretionary choice of Italy as the
governing authority for that territory.

The principle that supervision of the management of mandated
areas should be carried out by international organs, through tech-
niques not involving the assertion of legal competence to com-
mand or coercive capacity to enforce, was transferred from the
League to the United Nations. The League Council and its aux-
iliary Permanent Mandates Commission were replaced by the
General Assembly and its subordinate Trusteeship Council. The
latter Council was designed as a body of governmental repre-
sentatives in contrast to the independent expert membership of
the Mandates Commission, and it was assigned a somewhat more
elevated status in the organizational hierarchy than its prototype
had enjoyed. It was endowed with formal capacity to consider
petitions relating to trusteeship affairs, a function which the Man-
dates Commission had evolved without explicit constitutional
warrant, and with a new instrument of supervision, the authority
to dispatch visiting missions for on-the-spot investigation of Con-
ditions in territories under its surveillance. These revisions added
up to a potentially significant augmentation of the capacity of
international organization for exercising effective supervision, but
they did not modify the principle that international influence,
rather than control, should be the distinctive mark of trusteeship.

These points of essential resemblance between the Mandate
and Trusteeship Systems are only a part of the story. The creators
of the United Nations did more than reproduce, with some tech-
nical improvements, the League’s arrangements for dealing with
the colonial problem. They also effected some fundamental
changes, which can be explained and understood only in terms of
the contrast between the political and ideological context within
which they worked and that which had enveloped the drafters of
the Covenant.

The League was designed and built in what was still very much
a European world. Its makers operated on the basis of the gen-
eral assumption that the colonial system would and should en-
dure, and they were not confronted with a politically effective
challenge to the existence of that system. They exhibited only
the slightest interest in matters pertaining to colonialism in gen-
eral; concerning that issue, they were content to include in Article

SWORDS INTO PLOWS HARIS

354

23 of the Covenant a vague commitment that member states
would “undertake to secure just treatment of the native inhabi-
tants of territories under their control.”

The formulation of mandate provisions was essentially an effort
to settle the disposition of a particular group of colonics, taken
from defeated enemies, in accordance with requirements posed
by political viewpoints prevailing within the white man s world.
European conflicts over colonies ought to be eliminated in the
future; hence, Allied nonannexation pledges should be respected,
so as to avoid providing a pretext for a new war to reconquer
lost colonies, and to establish the precedent that war should not
be used as an instrument of colonial rivalry. The "A” mandates.
Middle Eastern territories severed from the Turkish Empire and
presumed to be nearly ready for independence, were distributed
between Britain and France in such a way as to register an ad-
justment of the conflicting ambitions of those two states. Those of
the “B” category, which included all the African mandates except
Southwest Africa, were subjected to the rule of the commercial
open door, in the interest of avoiding economic clashes among
European powers. The latter group and the remaining territories,
which were customarily referred to as “C” mandates, were ex-
cluded from fortification and militarization, again for the primary
purpose of guarding against their conversion into focal points for
the development of rivalries among the states of Europe.

In all these matters, it is clear that the political considerations
affecting the construction of the Mandate System were factors
relating to the internal issues of that part of the world which
accepted and practiced colonialism. So far as the interests of de-
pendent peoples were concerned, the primary objective of the
system was the prevention of abusive exploitation and misrule,
and this purpose too was set in response to politically effective
demands which had arisen within the white man's world. 11 In
political terms, the peoples on the receiving end of colonialism
constituted a passive object, unable to generate pressures signifi-
cantly affecting the formulation of the League's approach.

The critical difference between the political context of 1915
and that of the early League era lies in the facts that a widespread
attack upon the very existence of the colonial system had gath-

“ Haas, op rit . pp 521-536.

TRUSTEESHIP AS AN APPROACH TO PEACE 355

ered momentum by the end of World War II, and that the non-
white world had found its voice and begun to assert its interests.
At San Francisco, the representatives of European and European-
derived nations could not proceed upon the assumption that the
colonial problem was simply their problem, to be dealt with in
such a way as to promote harmony among themselves and to sat-
isfy the humanitarian instincts of their more morally sensitive
elements; they could not even assume with confidence that the
issue was definable in terms of reforming the colonial system.
Colonialism had become a global question, and the political arena
within which it was discussed had been enlarged to include active
and vociferous participants from both sides of the colonial fence.
The League approach had been determined by compromises
among statesmen of the continental and extra-continental Euro-
pean world, including those who had troubled consciences or
troublesome constituents with troubled consciences, those who
had unsatisfied colonial ambitions, and those who had peace-
preserving aspirations. This kind of compromise was still relevant
at San Francisco, but it was no longer the central issue; the
United Nations approach had to be pre-eminently the product of
compromise between the possessing and the possessed halves of
the old colonial world. The position of the former was weakened
by its war-debilitated condition, its internal dissensions, and its
own gnawing doubts about the legitimacy of colonialism. The
other half was on the political and ideological upswing, although
it was handicapped by diplomatic immaturity and the incom-
plete development of the elements of political power. The stage
was set in 1945 for a complicated process of negotiation over the
future 0 &£he colonial system.

The emergent political strength of the non-European and es-
sentially anticolonial world was primarily responsible for the dis-
tinctive features of the United Nations approach to trusteeship
questions. The Charter provision for constituting the Trusteeship
Council as a body equally balanced between states administering
trust territories and members not having such responsibilities was
a clear recognition of the new pattern of political forces bearing
on colonialism. The decided shift from negative emphasis upon
preventing abuse of dependent peoples to positive stress upon the
goal of promoting their economic, social, and political advance

356

SWORDS

ITO PLOWSHARFS

was in large part a registration of the political potency of the
newly articulate peoples. Whereas the relevant part of the Cove-
nant had been a self-denying ordinance of the colonial powers,
setting limits to the privileges of ownership, the corresponding
section of the Charter was more nearly a negotiated contract be-
tween rulers and ruled, asserting the rights and aspirations of the
latter as well as the authority of the former. The spokesmen for
colonial peoples were successful in making the Charter reflect
their determination that the white man’s burden should be more
burdensome than the mere exercise of decent self-restraint.

The most striking innovation of the United Nations approach
to colonial matters was the incorporation in the Charter of Chap-
ter XI, in which members ruling non-self-governing territories
committed themselves to the proposition that all colonial posses-
sions constituted a sacred trust, accepted a codification of inter-
national standards to which colonial policy should conform, and
agreed to the obligation of reporting to the United Nations on
the performance of their developmental responsibilities. This dec-
laration of responsibility constituted an imperfect universalization
of the principle of international trusteeship. While it provided
only the vaguest hint of measures for the institutionalization of
international accountability, it nevertheless ratified the doctrine
that all colonies, whether subjected to the formal authority of the
Trusteeship System or not, are minor wards of the human family
to be brought to self-respecting and self-reliant adulthood, rather
than chattels to be ruled and used at the pleasure of their owners.

The actual formulation of Chapter XI at San Francisco was
based upon proposals initially put forward by Britain and Aus-
tralia, and it has sometimes been suggested that it was a unilateral
declaration by the colonial powers, “an act of generosity" on their
part. 1 * However, the evidence is clear that the adoption of this
unprecedented document was a concession to the political effec-
tiveness of the demands posed by representatives of that area
which had long been on the wrong side of the colonial tracks. It*
provisions, like those of the two following Chapters which laid
out the constitutional basis of the Trusteeship System, reflected
the interplay of colonial and anticolonial forces. Its major seg-

“Chatlrj Chaumont. “A French Mew on Security through International Or-
ganisation." International Organization, May 1950. p. 240.

TRUSTEESHIP AS AN APPROACH TO PEACE 357

mem, Article 73, represented the outcome of the clash between
colonial conservatism and the radical demand for positive meas-
ures to end colonialism by advancing its subjects beyond colonial
status; Article 74, representing the old-style agreement of colonial
powers not to be nasty to each other, was stuck on as a mere
appendage.

The significance of the transformation of the colonial debate
from a conversation among statesmen of the European tradition
to an argument between them and spokesmen of the non-
European world is even more evident in the operation and de-
velopment of the United Nations than in the drafting of its
Charter. Since the inception of the world organization, the anti-
colonial forces have increased in relative numerical strength
through the admission of new members, achieved the fuller mo-
bilization of resentments, sensitivities, and aspirations, developed
a corps of leaders and spokesmen, and learned new skills of
diplomatic bargaining and international parliamentary maneu-
vering. In short, an increasingly effective anticolonial bloc has
emerged as a major factor in the political processes of the United
Nations.

Life would be simpler for the analyst if he could describe the
political situation regarding colonial issues in the United Nations
in terms of a clear-cut division between colored peoples and white

men, present and past victims of colonialism and present and
past masters, underdogs demanding elementary justice and top-
dogs insisting upon the perpetuation of their superior status and
special privileges. However, this will not do. The anticolonial bloc
has a solid membership core which offers some justification for
calling it an Asian-Arab-African grouping. It gains a variable
amount of support from the ranks of Latin American states. It en-
joys the mixed blessing of the usual support of the Soviet bloc;
that support is sometimes more embarrassing than helpful in pro-
moting the mobilization of necessary majorities, and it poses the
delicate problem of avoiding the danger of the bloc’s becoming a
tail wagged by the Communist dog. The anticolonial cause arouses
strong sympathies within the Western community, and is capable
of attracting \otcs from that sector.

The colonial bloc, on the other hand, consists essentially of the
states which administer colonics or trust territories — Britain,

TRUSTEESHIP AS AN APPROACH TO PEACE 359

administration of trust areas. A special committee for the consid-
eration of reports from dependencies has become a permanently
temporary feature of the organizational structure of the General
Assembly; constituted on the same principle of balanced mem-
bership as the Trusteeship Council, it has gone far toward assimi-
lating the status of all non-self-governing territories to that of
the select few with which the Council deals.

Beyond this, the major strategy of the anticolonial bloc has
been to convert the General Assembly, the organ in which its
relative voting power is greatest, into a forum for the considera-
tion of all issues relating to colonialism, whether they are specifi-
cally concerned with the Trusteeship System, the Declaration
Regarding Non-Self-Governing Territories, or demands for na-
tional self-determination. An aggressive and broadly successful
campaign has been waged to override claims of domestic jurisdic-
tion, restrictive interpretations of the commitments in Chapter
XI, and demands that the General Assembly respect the delega-
tion of functions to its subordinate Trusteeship Council and
Committee on Information from Non-Self-Goveming Territories.
Serving as the instrument of anticolonial voting majorities, the
Assembly has articulated the demand that administering author-
ities set target dates for the achievement of self-government or
independence by their trust territories; it has pressed colonial
powers to send indigenous representatives of dependencies to par-
ticipate in the work of the Committee on Information; it has
urged those powers to go beyond the ostensible requirements of
Chapter XI by including information on political development
in their reports on non-self-goveming territories; and it has as-
serted the claim that administering powers are incompetent, ex-
cept with its own formal concurrence, to decide that dependent
territories have reached a sufficiently advanced political status to
justify the termination of reporting on them as non-self-goveming
areas. The Assembly has lent itself to the endorsement of the
genera) thesis that all peoples base a right of national self-deter-
mination which transcends the legal sovereignty of colonial pos-
sessors, and it has to a scry considerable extent functioned as the
institutional vehicle for the elaboration and application of the
principle that international organization has a broad mandate to
intercede on behalf of dependent peoples whenever they or their

360

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARtS

vigorous champions find themselves at odds with colonial powers.
In brief, the Assembly has become the means for nullifying the
provisions of the Charter which seemed to guarantee that the
United Nations would not adopt a radical attitude toward colo-
nialism, in much the same degree that it has become the instru-
ment for canceling the Charter agreement that the United Na-
tions would not serve in security matters as an agency of inter-
national opposition to the policy of one of the Big Five.

The victory of anticolonialism in the United Nations has not
been by any means complete. In practical terms, the passage of
a General Assembly recommendation favorable to the cause of
subject peoples, or the inclusion of a critical comment on the pol-
icy of administering powers in a report of the Trusteeship Coun-
cil, represents something distinctly less than an effective assertion
of international control over the fate of colonies; such verbal vic-
tories are politically significant, but they aTe not decisive. More-
over, the ascendancy of anticolonialism is not sufficiently well
established to guarantee even this sort of triumph in every case.
The colonial powers not only retain the legal capacity and actual
working competence to thumb their noses at what they regard as
officious intrusions into their domains by United Nations organs,
but they also maintain a degree of political strength which en-
ables them to force the watering down or on occasion the com-
plete rejection of anticolonial proposals. The list of successes
achieved by the champions of colonial underdogs in their cam-
paign to become the ideological masters of the United Nations is
an impressive one, but it is offset by such instances of successful
recalcitrance as the blocking of repeated moves to give permanent
constitutional status to the Committee on Information from Non-
Self-Goveming Territories, the defeat of efforts to endow that
body with supervisory capacity virtually equivalent to that of the
Trusteeship Council, the unilateral cessation of reports on a sub-
stantial number of dependencies, and the frustration of attempts
to mobilize the political prestige of the Assembly against the
French position in Tunisia and Morocco and the British position
in Cyprus. Anti-amicolonialism is on the defensive in the United
Nations, but it has not yet been rendered defenseless.

In broad perspective, it is probable that the most significant
thing to be said about the course of the United Nations in this

TRUSTEESHIP AS AN APPROACH TO PEACE 361

field is not that the world organization has become the registrar
and instrument o£ the triumphant surge o£ dynamic anticolonial-
ism, but rather that it has become the scene of conflict, the prize
ring within which the battle over the future of colonialism has
been fought.

To say this is to declare that the original United Nations ap-
proach to the colonial issue has been proved a failure, in an
important respect. The relevant sections of the Charter repre-
sented a design to bring about the harmonious cooperation of all
concerned in a collective effort to enhance the welfare and pro
mote the political maturation of peoples who had fallen behind
or been held back in the march of progress. The United Nations
was envisaged as a community workshop, not a marshaling ground
for opposing forces. The ideal of the Charter was to register a
basic agreement between groups on the two sides of the colonial
fence. Dominant powers renounced the right of irresponsible
domineering over subject peoples, accepted the ultimate objective
of liquidating the colonial system through the graduation of its
wards to autonomous status, and agreed to become accountable
administrative agents in the operation of this global enterprise.
Spokesmen of the discontents of the non-European world recipro
cated by accepting the principle that dependent peoples required
preparation for autonomy rather than sheer emancipation, ac-
knowledging the propriety of entrusting the major role in the de-
velopmental process to the states which had both a legal foothold
in colonial areas and a treasury of experience in the administra-
tion of those areas, and promising loyal cooperation in carrying out
the constructive tasks that lay ahead. Thus, the conflict between
imperialism and emancipatory nationalism was to be transformed
from a bitter struggle between irreconcilable antagonists, a con-
frontation endangering the future peace of the world, into a ra-
tional discussion among statesmen who shared, and felt that they
shared, a common dedication to the aim of promoting the evolu-
tion of new societies able to play a full role in the international
relations of the future. There would be debate and disagreement,
but it would reflect the different views of collaborators imbued
with mutual trust and respect, not the animosities of colonialists
convinced that their critics were traitorous rebels and irrespon-
sible fomenters of rebellion, and of anticolonialim committed to

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

362

the proposition that they had to combat tyrannical oppressors
whose only concern was to perpetuate the system which they dom-
inated.

This hopeful image of trustful collaboration in the colonial
sphere has proved as illusory as that of great power solidarity in
the security sphere. The actual gap between the substantive posi-
tions of the colonial and anticolonial blocs is perhaps not so great
as it might appear; the former, by and large, is prepared to recog-
nize the collapse of the colonial system and to participate in its
orderly dismantlement; the latter, on the whole, is willing that
the white man should carry his burden a little longer, provided
that he really carries a burden instead of running off with booty,
and that he admits the obligation to lay it down when ordered
to do so by the United Nations.

But the subjective gap is wide indeed. States administering
non-self-governing and trust territories have tended to develop a
deep sense of grievance; they graciously accepted commitments at
San Francisco which the anticolonial bloc has insisted upon
stretching beyond all recognition; they are busily engaged in proj-
ects of colonial uplift for which they are rewarded only by accu-
sations of imperialism; they apply their unique expertness and
wisdom to the administration of backward regions only to be
handicapped by the intrusive ignorance of bumptious amateurs.
Feeling themselves unappreciated and maligned, as well as double-
crossed by those who have read rabid anticolonialism between
the lines of the Charter, they have reacted by falling back upon
a very strict interpretation of their legal obligations and of the
world organization’s constitutional competence to intervene in
colonial matters, nourishing an excessive sensitivity to criticism
and admonition, and exhibiting a stubborn intransigence in inter-
national discussions of issues relating to the trusteeship ideal.
Thus, for instance, an Australian spokesman told the Assembly
in 1954:

We in Australia have no objection to constructive criticism, but
we resent the sort of criticism and insinuations to which we have
been subjected and which we regard as unfounded and captious.
Please let me say, with respect to our critics, that the United Nations
Trusteeship System does not mean that the United Nations is in
charge of our Trust Territories. We are in charge of them and we

TRUSTEESHIP AS AN APPROACH TO PEACE 8G3

are footing the bill, and we are meeting our obligations toward the
Trust Territories with all the energy and sympathy and expert
experience that we can bring to it. 13

Regarding the question of non-self-governing territories in gen-
eral, the colonial powers have taken the broad view that Chapter
XI of the Charter is merely a unilateral declaration of their en-
lightened policy which in no way reduces their sovereign right
of control or authorizes international meddlesomeness. This posi-
tion was vigorously defended by a Belgian delegate to the Assem-
bly in 1954, when he explained his government’s abstention from
participation in recent sessions of the Committee on Information
as an act of resistance to efforts to whittle down Belgium’s con-
trol over the Congo. He asserted that his country's sovereignty
over that territory had not been impaired by the acceptance of
Chapter XI, and claimed that "it was for Belgium, and not, as
some representatives believed, for the General Assembly, to solve
the territory’s problems”; moreover, he interpreted Belgium’s ob-
ligation under that chapter as merely a duty to submit technical
information — “not a report”— on matters other than political con-
ditions to the Secretary-General — "not to the General Assembly”
— for informational purposes— “not for examination or discussion
in any organ of the Assembly.” 14

On the whole, the colonial powers have been willing to devote
considerable effort to the improvement of conditions in depend-
encies and even to the furtherance of political trends which point
to the termination of their dominance over subject peoples. How-
ever, they have offered bitter resistance to the idea that they are,
or ought to be, under an obligation to permit international con-
trol of their colonial policy, and have insisted that the world
should simply sit trustfully, secure in the knowledge that de-
pendent peoples are in good hands, gaze admiringly as expert ad-
ministrators make sound judgments concerning the proper meth-
ods and possible tempo of development, and nod approvingly
as the work of civilization is progressively accomplished.

The anticolonial powers, on the other hand, have tended to
regard themselves as crusaders, doing battle against the forces of
entrenched privilege and oppressive exploitation. They are not

* United Nations Review, November 1954, pp. 82 6J.

December 1954, p. 31.

364

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

much impressed by the claims of benevolent paternalism put for-
ward by their opposite numbers; looking back at the history of
imperialism, with its record of positive abuses and negative fail-
ures to promote the development of subject peoples, and observ-
ing the reluctance of administering powers to countenance the
evolution of effective international supervision and direction of
their activities, they conclude that the progressive liquidation of
colonialism depends upon the exertion of unremitting pressure.
They are distrustful of European good intentions, and insistent
upon the establishment of firm commitments. They are dissatis-
fied with devices for the nominal international supervision of
colonial policy, and determined to create effectual instrumental-
ities of international control. They are impatient with slow and
uncertain advance, and eager to force the pace toward precisely
defined goals. In particular, they are insistent that it should be
clearly understood and universally admitted that the whole busi-
ness of the government and development of dependent territories
is very much the affair of the international community; as Dr.
Trujillo of Ecuador put it, "We can no more speak of the sov-
ereignty of the Administering Authority over a Non-Self-Govem-
ing Territory than we can speak of the ownership by the guardian
of the goods of the pupil.” 18

Convinced that the sovereign rights of colonial powers in de-
pendent territories have been virtually annulled, they focus their
attention upon the international responsibilities which those pow-
ers have assumed; a Brazilian representative said in 1950 that “the
only justification for colonialism at the present time was the abil-
ity of certain highly-developed countries to promote through their
own resources the development of areas where the people were
not yet sufficiently developed to manage their own affairs.” 14
Impressed by such facts as that three hundred years of Dutch rule
left Indonesia with only 1000 physicians, 300 lawyers, 8 engineers,
and 10 economists in a population of 80 million, 11 and that the
Italian colonial regime bequeathed to Libya a single native law-
yer and no Libyan physicians at all, 18 anticolonialists consider

"Ibid, November 1954, p. 82.

'’United Nations Bulletin, December 1. 1950, p 635.

W S. TaVdir Alisjahban*. “Tensions in Indonesian Life and Culture," Confluence,
March 1953, p 14

“ United Nations Bulletin, January 1, 1954. p 44.

366 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

eration and the authority of an umpire. Nevertheless, the point
remains that the Charter represented a futile effort to compose
basic differences and make collaboration rather than conflict the
characteristic feature of international relations in the colonial
field.

Another failure must be chalked up to the Trusteeship System
of the United Nations: it has failed to promote the meaningful
establishment of the principle that a trust territory is an inter-
national zone in which no state can hope for anything more ad-
vantageous to its national interest than the privilege of bearing a
heavy burden of responsibility. If the basic terms of the system,
stated in Article 76 of the Charter, are taken seriously, the admin-
istration of a trust area is not the limited enjoyment of special
privilege, but the solemn assumption of special responsibility;
the qualification for appointment as an administering power is
not a claim of legal right or political desert, or even a negative
disposition to refrain from abusive treatment of dependent peo-
ples, but a positive willingness and ability to assist in and con-
tribute to the development of a relatively backward people and
country.

In fact, nothing can be clearer than that the management of
a trust territory is still regarded as a right to be demanded or a
privilege to be sought, rather than an onerous duty to be sacri-
ficially performed. The urge to undertake the administration of
a trust territory stems mainly from the fact that this involves
enjoyment of the perquisites of national ownership at least as
much as endurance of the burdens of international responsibility.
At the Potsdam Conference, Stalin made a bid for a trust terri-
tory by saying that the USSR “would like some territory of the
defeated states,” 18 thereby indicating a distinctly cynical view of
the Trusteeship System. The United States became the adminis-
tering authority in the Pacific Islands formerly under Japanese
mandate in circumstances which made it obvious that this was the
act of a conqueror, insisting upon the retention of territories
deemed militarily valuable, rather than the generous gesture of
an advanced state, consenting to do a difficult job on behalf of
the international community. The decision of the General As-
sembly in 1949 to designate Italy as the administering power in

“Byrnes, Speaking Frankly , p. 76.

TRUSTEESHIP AS AN APPROACH TO PEACE 367

its former colony of Somaliland was quite clearly a victory for a
group of states which considered it appropriate and desirable to
do something for Italy, rather than a considered judgment that
Italy was the state best equipped to do something for the people
of Somaliland. The evidence is decisive that managing a trust
territory is regarded as having a politically and strategically use-
ful hegemony over that territory; trusteeship modifies colonial
possession, but it does not transform it into disinterested inter-
national service.

The corollary of the fact that the right to govern a dependent
area is still attractive in terms of national interest, even when that
right is circumscribed by the restrictions of the Trusteeship Sys-
tem, is that trusteeship has not genuinely become a device for
internationalizing a given territory. Ideally, trusteeship should
serve as a means of effecting the political neutralization of a
colony, contributing to the resolution of conflicts among colonial
powers and promoting concentration upon the interests of colo-
nial inhabitants by removing the territory from the sphere of
political competition. Designation as a trust territory should es-
tablish the status of an area as an international zone, off-limits to
rival imperialists; it should give assurance to the indigenous pop-
ulation that it is no longer to be treated as a pawn in the chess
game of power politics. Only if trusteeship comes to have these
implications can it serve the political purpose of diminishing
frictions among the owners and would-be owners of international
real estate and between that group and the anticolonial bloc, or
the humanitarian purpose of mobilizing support for the uplift of
subject peoples.

Trusteeship has failed to acquire this meaning. The Mandate
System approached it by prohibiting the militarization of terri-
tories in the “B" and "C" categories, but the United Nations sys-
tem has reversed (hat provision and has gone even further by
setting up a special tjpe of arrangement, tailor-made for the
United States, uhich enables the Pacific Islands to be at once a
mist territory and an integral segment of the American system
of military bajes; these islands indeed constitute a "sacred trust"
of the United States, but they are sacred primarily to the strategic
interests of the administering power. The Soviet Union acqui-
tted in this arrangement, evidently because it realized that the

368 SWORDS INTO PLOW SHARIS

only alternative was the establishment of unfettered American
sovereignty over the area and possibly because it nourished the
vain hope that it might become the beneficiary of a similar ar-
rangement, but it is inconceivable that the USSR should have
considered the acceptance of American trusteeship as tantamount
to the neutralization of the islands.

The Charter contains the seed from which genuine interna-
tionalization of trust territories might grow, in its provision that
the United Nations itselE might serve as an administering au-
thority. 2 ® This seed has thus far not been permitted to germinate.
States which have found themselves in possession and control of
dependent areas have been willing at most to accept restrictions
upon their administration, not to abdicate in favor of an inter-
national regime. Significantly, the one instance in which interna-
tional administration has been seriously considered was that of
Jerusalem, a political no-man’s-land so far as the major powers
were concerned; even there, trusteeship as a neutralizing device
was rendered infeasible by the competitive ambitions of Israel
and Jordan. The case in which the nearest approach to genuine
international control was made was that of Italian Somaliland 21 —
a case in which no power was in a position to dictate the terms of
settlement. The record is clear that trusteeship has not come to be
regarded, and has not been permitted to become, a means for
taking colonies out of the arena within which conflicts of national
interest operate.

The most striking — and the most tragic — confirmation of this
point is provided by the decision of the General Assembly con-
cerning the disposition of the former Italian colony of Libya.
That country was decreed a sovereign state, and it is difficult to
avoid the conclusion that it was not favored with independence
but was rather penalized by the imposition of an independent
status for which it was vastly unprepared. In political terms, in-

” Article 81

11 Trusteeship Agreement for this territory contains provisions establishing
an international Advisory Council to assist in the administration, setting a time
limit of ten years for the achievement ot independence by the territory, and re-
quiring adherence by Italy to an annexed Declaration of Constitutional Principle*
which includes the explicit statement that “The sovereignty of the Territory is
vested in its people. . . - See the text, in International Organization, May 1950.
pp. 347-356.

TRUSTEESHIP AS AN APPROACH TO PEACE 571

stage. In a very teal sense, the activities of the United Nations in
the colonial field may be regarded as an effort to prevent not a
possible World War III but a hypothetical World War IV, by pre-
venting the development of an irreparable breach between the
European and the non-European worlds.

If the organized effort to tackle the issues of colonialism is
commendably forehanded, it is nevertheless clear that it is already
almost too late to lay the foundations for mutual respect and
confidence between the peoples of Asia and Africa and those of
the far-flung European family. The United Nations represents not
only the first concerted campaign but quite possibly also the last
chance for European civilization to make up for its shady past in
dealing with non-European peoples. This opportunity may not
have been deserved, but it lias been presented. An enlarged
version of the old "Yellow Peril" concept has acquired significance
in the mid-twentieth century, and it may be that the most im-
portant function of the United Nations is to stimulate a response
to that challenge which will involve not the solidification of
European peoples for the purpose of stifling the rise of non-
European peoples, but the unification of all peoples in a collab-
orative effort to promote the successful achievement of non-
European aspirations, and to lay the groundwork for peaceful and
cooperative relations between the former masters and the former
subjects of the colonial system.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Culun.ui, James S., "Togo land," International Conciliation, No. 509,
September 195G.

Haas, Ernst Ik, "Tile Attempt to Terminate Colonialism: Acceptance
of die United Nations Trusteeship System,” International Organiza-
tion, February J933, pp. 1 21.

Haas, Erast Ik, 'The Reconciliation of Conflicting Colonial Policy
Aims: Acceptance of the League of Nations Mandate System," ibid.,
Not'cmbcr 1932, pp 521-336-

370 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

bililies of colonial development. In the final analysis, however,
they have also facilitated the expression of the developing concept
of the international public interest in the progressive rebuilding
of the slums of the global political system, Risen some substantive
meaning to the concept of international guardianship over subject
peoples, and made some progress toward turning colonial powers
and anticolomal slates into workhorses and gadflies.

In institutional terms, the development of trusteeship has been
remarkable. One can very nearly exhaust the League’s approach
to colonialism by analyzing the Mandate System, but a full under-
standing of the approach undertaken by the United Nations
necessitates going beyond the formal limits of the Trusteeship
System and the mechanism for implementing the Declaration Re-
garding Non-Self-Governing Territories. The United Nations has
assumed the role of a midwife, assisting at the birth of new states
from the matrix of colonialism. It has functioned as a Bureau of
Vital Statistics, issuing international birth certificates to new
claimants for membership in the world community. It has under-
taken to exercise a tutelary function for newly independent states,
helping them to develop the resources and master the arts which
are essential for the meaningful enjoyment of national autonomy,
and to acquire the habits and attitudes which are requisite for
responsible {urticipation in the aflairs of an increasingly inter-
dependent world. This latter aspect of the organization's work
may proside a compensatory mechanism for offsetting the effects
of politically-induced premature birth of independent states, as
in the case of Libya; it is possible that United Nations assistance
after indejxrndcnce may come to be more significant than trustee-
ship preparatory to independence.

The United Nations approach to the colonial problem ts
marked by many shortcomings and inadequacies, but. when all is
said and done, it constitutes the most ambitious eflort yet made to
deal comprehensively, posithely. and constructively with the
issues Hut lave spilled over from the age of imperialism. In the
ircadth and depth of its concern with those issues, the United Na-
tions meals itself as a very rare phenomenon in the field of in-
ternational relations: an international organization trying to deal
wuh a situation before, rather than alter, it has reached the crisis

CHAPTER

The Functional Approach
to Peace

The "functional" sector of international organization is that
pan of the mass of organized international activities which relates
directly to economic, social, technical, and humanitarian matters
— that is, to problems which may be tentatively described as non-
political. Functional activities are immediately and explicitly con-
cerned with such values as prosperity, welfare, social justice, and
the "good life," rather than the prevention of war and elimination
of national insecurity.

In a sense, the development of this type of activity, which had
its beginning in the public international unions of the nineteenth
century and is now flourishing luxuriantly under the auspices of
the United Nations and the Specialized Agencies, represents the
deviation of international organization from its single-minded
concern with the problem of war. It can be argued that war is not
the only nut that international organization has to crack, and that
the promotion of human welfare is as legitimate an objective of
collaborative arrangements among governments as the abolition of
human warfare. Occasionally, this thesis has been frankly stated:
for instance. Sir Muhammad Zafrulla Khan of Pakistan has
written:

The paramount aim of the United Nations is the promotion of
social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom. . . .

375

372 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

Hall, II. Duncan, Mandates, Dependencies ami Trusteeship, Washing-
ion: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1918.

Holcombe, Arthur N.. Dependent Areas in the Post-War World,
Boston: World Peace Foundation, 1941.

Maclaurin, John, The United Nations and Power Politics, London:
George Allen and Unwin, 1951, Chap. IX.

Murray, James N.. Jr., The United Nations Trusteeship System, Ur-
bana University of Illinois Press, 1957.

Rislin, benjamin. Italian Colonies, New York: Carnegie Endowment
lor International Peace, 1950.

THE FUNCTIONAL APPROACH TO PEACE 375

the ultimate solution of political conflicts and elimination of war,
has been most elaborately developed and persuasively stated by
David Mitrany . 4

In Mitrany's terms, “the problem of our time is not how to
keep the nations peacefully apart but how to bring them actively
together .” 8 He would not approach the problem of peace directly,
by organizing around the points of national conflict, but in-
directly, by seeking out the areas of mutuality, and “binding
together those interests which are common, where they are com-
mon, and to the extent to which they are common ." 6 Mitrany
abjures the effort to devise a comprehensive blueprint for the or-
ganization of international relations, preferring instead to rely
upon the pragmatic development of special-purpose organizations,
which he thinks will tend to evolve their own distinctive struc-
tural patterns, procedural systems, and areas of competence in
accordance with the inherent requirements of their functional
missions . 7 This method is recommended as one which “seeks, by
linking authority to a specific activity, to break away from the
traditional Jink between authority and a definite territory. ...” 8
It is a horizontal approach, shifting attention away from the
vertical divisions of human society which are symbolized by the
sovereignty of states, toward the various strata of social need
which cut across national dividing lines. It stresses the question
of what contributions are essential to the creative work of solving
common problems rather than that of what sacrifices are required
for the negative task of reconciling conflicting interests.

Mitrany explicitly links functionalism to the ultimate pre-
vention of war and development of authoritative world political
institutions. He sees the ideal of peace in terms of national co-
activity rather than national coexistence; he puts his faith “not in
a protected peace but in a working peace," * and believes that a

‘See The Progress of International Government (New Haven- Yale University
Press, 19SS); “Functional Federalism,” Common Cause, November 1950, pp. 196-
199; and. particularly, A Working Peace System (London and New York: Royal
Is «!WKe sf .’.MWsnMMWri .iffiafcj, 19M j\

* A Working Peace System, p. 7.

*Ibid., p. 40.

* Ibid , pp. 41, 43.

* Ibid , p. 6.

*Ibid., p. 59.

374 ' SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

Even the maintenance of international peace and saving mankind
from the scourge of war is but an essential preliminary. Though
essential, peace is only a means, a condition precedent, a sine qua
non toward the ultimate objective . 1
David A. Morse, the Director-General of the International Labor
Organization, once defined the ‘‘over-riding consideration" of his
agency’s stork as that of improving the status and welfare of
working people , 2 despite the fact that the Constitution under
which it operates makes the promotion of peace the formally
dominant concern of the ILO, and treats the amelioration of the
conditions of labor as a means to that end, or at most a coordinate
objective.

However strong may be the tendency of particular statesmen or
international officials candidly or otherwise to elevate functional
activities to the rank of ends in themselves, the official doctrine is
that those activities are undertaken for the sake of the indirect
contributions which they make to solving the problems of peace
and security. If they are useful in themselves, so much the better;
but the day has not yet arrived when governments feel inclined
to launch — or feel assured of getting the essential support of their
legislatures and peoples for launching — either multilateral or
unilateral programs for doing good to foreigners simply for the
sake of doing good. International organization clearly reflects,
and stimulates, the development of a global social consciousness,
"an international ethic of mutual aid," which is a striking in-
novation of the twentieth century,* but it is a curious commentary
on our times that the work of international agencies, even though
it may be directed toward meeting the most elementary human
needs, requires justification in political terms.

The Theory of Functionalism

The theory of functionalism, which is essentially an assertion
and defense of the proposition that the development of interna-
tional economic and social cooperation is a major prerequisite for

* I'mted X at ions Bulletin, December 1. 1952. p 511.

‘Ibid , January t, 1931. p. 28.

*S«e the Introduction to the Preliminary Report on the World Social Situation
hy the United Nation! Department ot Social Attain, ibid. May 15. 1932, P- S* 2 -

THE FUNCTIONAL APPROACH TO PEACE 877

don, discrimination — these are the factors which create the
desperation, apathy, frustradon, fear, cupidity, and hatred which
make the world susceptible to war. This diagnosis owes much to
the Marxian insistence upon the significance of material de-
terminants for political conditions, but its popularity has not been
confined to representatives of any particular school of thought.
The notion that war is traceable to deep seated causes in the
economic and social realm has become part of the standard intel-
lectual currency of the twentieth century.

Given this assumption, functionalism sets out to treat the basic
ailments of mankind. It proposes to elevate living standards in
backward areas, reduce the interference of national frontiers with
the working of the complex global economy, minimize the factors
that make for economic instability, and promote the attainment of
higher levels of health, literacy, culture, and social justice. This is
not merely a program for aiding the poor by enlisting the altru-
istic, or the enlightened selfish, assistance of the rich; much of the
business of functionalism relates to the solution of problems
which affect the most highly developed sector of the world,
precisely because it is highly developed. Functionalism under-
takes to grapple with the effects of both the excessive primitive-
ness of underdeveloped regions and the excessive intricacy of
economic and social relationships in the intensely industrialized
parts of the wodd. Thus, it hopes to extirpate the roots of war.

In the second place, functionalism attributes the phenomenon
of war to the institutional inadequacy of the national state sys-
tem. The state is at fault, not because it is intrinsically a fighting
organism, as the power politician would have it, but because it
is increasingly an inappropriate and ineffectual agency for doing
what has to be done in order to promote the economic and social
health of the human family. The state system imposes an arbi-
trary and rigid pattern of vertical divisions upon global society,
disrupting the organic unity of the whole, and carving the world
into segments whose separateness is jealously guarded by sovereign-
ties which are neither able to solve the fundamental problems nor
willing to permit them to be solved by other authorities. Peace
requires solutions of economic and social problems which can be
achieved only by problem-solving agencies coterminous in terri-
torial competence with the problem areas. The appropriate ad-

SWORDS INTO PLO

HARES

376

peaceful world society is “more likely to grow through doing
things together in workshop and market place rather than by
signing pacts in chancelleries.” 10 He states his thesis as follows:

Sovereignty cannot in fact be transferred effectively through a
formula, only through a function. By entrusting an authority with
a certain task, carrying with it command over the requisite powers
and means, a slice of sovereignty is transferred from the old
authority to the new; and the accumulation of such partial transfers
in time brings about a translation of the true seat of authority.
[Functionalism is a method] which would . . . overlay political
divisions with a spreading web of international activities and
agencies, in which and through which the interests and life of all
the nations would be gradually integrated. 11

Mitrany hypothesizes the development of successive layers of
functional collaboration, creating "increasingly deep and wide
strata of peace — not the stand offish peace of an alliance, but one
that would suffuse the world with a fertile mingling of common
endeavour and achievement.” 1 * This gradual evolution consti-
tutes what Mitrany calls a process of "federation by instal-
ments,” ** or, in Frederick L. Schuman's felicitous phrase, “peace
by pieces.” 14

The functional theory rests upon a very complex conception
of the nature and causes of war, and promises a correspondingly
elaborate set of results bearing upon the establishment and main-
tenance of peace. The basic assumptions and prescriptions of
functionalism in regard to the problem of peace may be divided
into three broad segments.

In the first place, war is regarded as the product of the objective
conditions of human society. It is the result neither of man’s
native instinct nor of his acquired sinfulness, neither of the
state’s inherent nature nor of its irrational policy; war is a
disease of global society, caused by grave deficiencies in the
economic and social circumstances of mankind. Poverty, misery,
ill-hcaltli, illiteracy, economic insecurity, social injustice, exploits*

"Ibid. p. 5 .

“ Ibid., pp. 9, M.

'•Ibid., p. 6 J.

, p. SI

“The Cemmomerelth e f Man, p. J 14 .

THE FUNCTIONAL APPROACH TO I'fACE

379

and more effective cooperation among the peoples of the world.

This concept involves not only the notion of transforming the
international outlook of particular human beings, but also that of
transferring competence from one set of human beings to another.
So far as the traditional ruling classes of international affairs, the
diplomats and the military men, are concerned, functionalism is
perhaps a project for evasion as much as for conversion.

For all its emphasis upon the underlying economic and social
roots of war, it does not altogether avoid the concoction of a devil
theory; its villains are those gentlemen — perhaps more properly
described as inveterate sinners in the national interest than as
genuine devils — who have long held something approaching a
monopolistic control of the conduct of relations among states.
Functionalism comes very close to regarding these officials as
incorrigible. Long habituated to the treatment of international
affairs as an area of conflict and competition, they are unlikely
to be swayed by the new mode of thought. Hence, functionalism
envisages a process of circumvention, described hopefully by H. G.
Wells as the evolution of “a comprehensive world control in the
presence of which Foreign Offices would fade out, since, by
reason of the conditions of their development, they are themselves
incapable of establishing peace,” 15 and sarcastically by Georg
Schwarzenberger as a project by which the "vicious dragons” who
are presumed to inhabit Foreign Offices are to be “cleverly out-
witted by gallant reforming knights." 18

More seriously, the expectation of functionalism is in line with
the concept of multilevel interpenetration of governments which
was brilliantly formulated by J. A. Salter after World War I. IT
The development of specialized international agencies dealing
with problems outside the scope of traditional diplomacy will re-
sult in making virtually every department of government a kind
of Foreign Office, and bring into the active conduct of interna-
tional relations a host of national officials whose professional
training and interests give them a predisposition to concentrate
upon the pragmatic issues of how to solve common problems for
the common advantage, rather than to focus upon questions of na-
“ Royal Institute o£ International Affairs. The Future of the League of Nations,

p 122

"A Manual of International Law, p. 148.

"Allied Shipping Control {Oxford: Clarendon Press

s. 1921).

378 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

ministrative unit varies with the nature of the problem, but it
only accidentally corresponds to the boundaries established by the
state system; more and more, the problems which are crucial to
the fitness of human society for sustaining a peaceful regime are
becoming bigger in scope than national states. Hence, the mission
of functionalism is to make peace possible by organizing particu-
lar layers of human social life in accordance with their particular
requirements, breaking down the artificialities of the zoning ar-
rangements associated with the principle of sovereignty.

Beyond this, functional theory purports to provide an in-
dispensable laboratory for the experimental development of or-
ganizational patterns and techniques which may serve as models
for the ultimately necessary machinery of internationalism on
the highest political levels. In the long run, the world requires a
replacement for the state system. The essential process of institu-
tional invention can be expected to gain momentum by being
put into operation first in the areas of recognized common in-
terest.

Finally, functionalism envisages its task in terms of the altera-
tion of the subjective conditions of mankind. War is caused by the
attitudes, habits of thought and feeling, and allegiances which
are fostered by the state system. Functional organizations may, by
focusing attention upon areas of common interest, build habits
of cooperation which will equip human beings for the conduct of
a system of international relations in which the expectation of
constructive collaboration will replace that of sterile conflict as
the dominant motif. Working international agencies will create
a system of mutual advantages which will assume too great a
value in the eyes of its beneficiaries for them to contemplate
disrupting it by permitting resort to war. Men will recognize in-
ternational organization as the giver of good gifts which their
states are no longer able to provide; they will cease to regard the
derogation of sovereignty as a dubiously permissible national
sacrifice, and come to think of it as a transfer of authority which
is essential to the attainment of desirable results, a profitable
investment in the good life. Thus, fundamental loyalties will be
increasingly shared by the state and the agencies of the world
community, the sentiment of human solidarity will be deepened,
and the subjective basis will be prepared for progressively broader

THE FUNCTIONAL APPROACH TO PEACE

SSI

fore the First World War, Paul S. Reinsch adumbrated a “con-
centric circles” concept of international organization, according
to which the idea of multilateral attack upon world problems will
function like a pebble dropped into the international pond, giving
rise to a series of circles of cooperation which will expand from
the limited area of technical agencies to the vast circumference of
a global political and security organization . 19 Paul G. Hoffman has
suggested that “The good thing about the spirit of unity is that it
ramifies out ; when you cultivate habits of unity in the economic
sphere, they naturally spread over to the political sphere and even
to the military sphere when the need arises." 20 Others have
intimated, rather vaguely, that (he accumulated agenda of con-
structive work under functional organizations will produce such
a preoccupation that men will abandon war in a fit of absent-
mindedness; they will forget to fight because they will be “too
busy with things that matter ." 91

In all these cases, the point is tlie same, however it may be ex-
pressed: the separability of economic and social problems from
political problems is only provisional, and they are ultimately
inseparable. International action at one level affects the other
level, and leads to comparable action at the other level. This
assumption of the effective connecting link lies at the heart of
functional theory.

It should be noted that the functionalist promise to transform
the political mentality and allegiance of human beings rests upon
a logic which emphasizes both the irrational and the rational
aspects of human nature. On the one hand, functionalism assumes
that political unity must be built, pearl-wise, around a central
irritant; it offers a new type of common enemy — such as poverty,
pestilence, or ignorance — to sene as the focal point around which
men may unite. It similarly stresses the irrational side of human
behavior when it suggests that men are such creatures of habit
that they will forget to clash in political matters once they have
become accustomed to cooperating in other areas. Finally, how-
ever, functionalism postulates a transfer of loyalties to the inter-
national community in response to the growing usefulness of

"PuMif InttnuitwHal t'niiwi (Rfnion- Ginn. 1911).

" Peace Con lie K'on <New York: Doubleday. 1931 ). j>. 62. Cop>Hght. 1951, by the

Cleat Ituok* Foundation.

" Maclauiin. The United Kmtioeu

end Potter PaUtiet. p. 506.

382

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES
functional agencies. This notion that men can be expected to
distribute their allegiances on the basis of a utilitarian calculation
imp bes a significant concept of the rationality of the human
loyalty structure. At bottom, the logic which expects a sense of
svorid community to derive from the operation of functional
agencies is rigorously rationalistic.

Evaluation of Functional Theory

which ,? tha ! ‘ h " e 3re P 00r, >’ "' atcll «l backdoors through
j - , CCSS m . a . y e Sa‘ ncd - Functionalism may be regarded as a

for , w- S . n .' akl " s "P °" sovereignty, full of hopeful possibilities
for establishing the groundwork of international community.

It ha, the great mem of appealing both to humanitarian ideal-
ism and to national self-interest. Pacifists may see functionalism a,
*ev m ’'■"°TK tary appr0ach to P““ a "d security, and
moL -° m - by .° th " m en of exceptional good will and

Dositivc ’■!, 1V , Uy m notin g svith approval the contrast betiveen its
cure aspects and the negative, restrictive, pre-
snrmd urtr, ° “Ppmaches to peace. There is a wide-
no oolicv ° t!™ WUh Sa * v3dor de Madariaga that "Peace is
about it smd 1 , - e ° nly Wa y to secure peace is to stop bothering

world into . . e 5 much to be done to convert the

dohre rfb f ° d . ioc,e, y- a " d ;• is reassuring to be told that the
it is converge T" 2 - 1 ” 1 contr * butI *on to peace — not to mention that
mate and n haVe 60v ' rmn ' nts persuaded that it is a legiti-

me LY„gof7 t “ ary Pan ° f thC " bmin '“ ■» support and subsidize

and a' mat '‘'““V Jf nati °" a > self-interest begin, to obtrude,
and a major strength of ,he appeal of functionalism begins to

C.ted Wright, A Study of War, II. 1092

THE FUNCTIONAL APPROACH TO PEACE 383

emerge. Functionalism proposes not to squelch but to utilize na-
tional selfishness; it asks governments not to give up the sover-
eignty which belongs to their peoples but to acquire benefits for
their peoples which were hitherto unavailable, not to reduce their
power to defend their citizens but to expand their competence to
serve them. The realist who repudiates the expectation that altru-
ism can become a major factor in international politics may find
much to hope for in a system of organization which invites states
to the common pursuit of common interests.

Moreover, functionalism is capable of striking a responsive
chord in both conservative and liberal hearts. To the conservative,
it may appear as an organic, naturalistic, evolutionary approach
to world organization. Mitrany’s formulation of the theory is
empirically oriented in the best tradition of British conservatism.
Functionalism eschews the rigidity of a formula and the neatness
of a blueprint; it projects the growth of international organization
as needed and in accordance with needs. It is flexible and op-
portunist; it makes an appeal to common sense for the discovery
of practicable solutions to definite problems, rather than to the
radical urge of doctrinaires to devise an ingenious scheme for the
comprehensive reform of international arrangements . 28 At the
same time, the liberal may regard functionalism as a distinctively
modem, progressive concept. Mitrany writes like a social demo-
crat, and he finds his great inspiration in the New Deal's notable
invention, the TVA . 24 Functionalism represents the application of
the welfare state philosophy to the international sphere, emphasiz-
ing the responsibility of international agencies for rendering serv-
ices rather than merely enforcing controls, and for extending their
concern into areas hitherto falling within the private entrepre-
neurial domain of the national state.

Lastly, functionalism has all the earmarks of a profound and
sophisticated approach to the problem of war. To those who are
weary of superficial approaches, it justifies itself by burrowing
deep under (he surface of rcsltCf A? tfnd the t acres of die ptub fern.
To those whose skepticism is excited by panaceas, it offers the ap-
peal of a system which prescribes specific treatment for the pri-

■ cf. the citation fiom Robert Boothby, In de Rujett. Strengthening the Frame -
work of Ftace, pp. 194-193

** "Functional Federali«in." Common Cause, November 1950. p. 199.

382

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

functional agencies. This notion that men can be expected to
distribute their allegiances on the basis of a utilitarian calculation
implies a significant concept of the rationality of the human
oya ty structure. At bottom, the logic which expects a sense of
world community to derive from the operation of functional
agencies is rigorously rationalistic.

Evaluation of Functional Theory

The concept of functionalism as an approach to peace is an
extraordinarily attractive doctrine in many ways and for many
reasons. It may appear to be an easy way out of the dilemma
which confronts modern civilization. Men who have come to
regar t e directly political approaches as nothing better than
prescriptions or humanity s beating its bloody head against the
Stone trail which guards national sovereignty may be heartened
J, n0 “ 0n tha ' th " c art P“'ly watched backdoors through
access may he gained. Functionalism may be regarded as a
device for sneaking up on sovereignty, full of hopeful possibilities
for estab tshtng the groundwork of international community.

. ht S" 3 ' of appealing both to humanitarian ideal-
. °, n . atl ° na S .^/ * nterest ‘ Pa cifwts may see functionalism as
.j ™ lra , y nonmilitary approach to peace and security, and
duty may he jo.ned by other men of exceptional good will and
sensitivity in noting with approval the contrast between its
™,iv, g 0n!<r,,c, " e a! P"“ and the negative, restrictive, pie-
tnrnd n™ . ° ° " a PP™ ad >” 10 Peace. There is a wide-

no nolirv^ l ° ST W , Ith SaIvat * or de Madariaga that “Peace is
about it mil i ■ 1C ° n ^ to secure peace is to stop bothering

ness of the “ Carry ° Ut ‘°S ether lh ' busi '

world intn a • * ere I$ muc ^ to be done to convert the

to '??, „ 8°<xl society, and i, is reassuring be told that the
it is Contr ' b,u * on to peace — not to mention that

mate and nec ' a ' e persuaded tliat it is a legiti-

the doirr- of it™** ° f t,leir b,,si ness to support and subsidite

and a 'main C * craem of uattonal self-interest begins to obtrude,
and a major strength of the appeal of functionalism begin, to

Cunt l„ Wright, A St.U, „ |,„, „

THE FUNCTIONAL APPROACH TO PEACE 385

of the preliminary separability of the economic and social strata
from the political, the essential priority of action in nonpolitical
layers, and the ultimate impact of results achieved there upon the
problems of the political stratum, requires cautious evaluation. Is
it in fact possible to segregate a group of problems and subject
them to treatment in an international workshop where the na-
tions shed their conflicts at the door and busy themselves only
with the cooperative use of the tools of mutual interest? Does not
this assumption fly in the face of the evidence that a trend toward
the politicization of all issues is operative in the twentieth cen-
tury? Considering only the problems which may most appro-
priately be styled economic and social, it is possible that the
horizontal slicing in which functionalism engages may be quite
as unfavorable for their proper administrative treatment as the
vertical segmentation imposed by the national state pattern; ex-
cessive stratification is no more helpful than excessive compart-
raentalization. As Gerhard Bebr has warned, "the artificial dis-
section of organic economic ties into separate economic organiza-
tions under independent authorities endangers their viability." iT

Assuming the feasibility of marking off a distinctively non-
political sector of human affairs, it is not self-evident that work in
this area should or can be assigned first place on the international
schedule. In objective terms, it may be that "the elements of order
are the prerequisite of economic and social progress,” and that "to
forward the world’s material welfare and human rights the peoples
must first be freed from the scourge of modern war.” 28 Reverting
to the subjective sphere, we may ask whether states can in fact be
induced to join hands in functional endeavor before they have
settled the outstanding political and security issues which divide
them. Functionalism’s insistence upon putting first things first
does not settle the matter of what things are first.

If it be granted that the assumptions and prescriptions of func-
tionalism are valid up to this point, it remains necessary to raise
questions concerning the efficacy of the functional process as
preparation for a solution of the ultimate problems of world

*» "The Furnpean Coal and Steel Community: A Political and Legal Innovation.”
i'ale Line lournat, November 1555, p. 42

* Grenville Clark, A Plan for Peace (New York: HaTper, 1950), pp. 47. 48,

381

sword:

: NTO PLOWSHARES

mary ills from which war derives, instead of a cheap patent
remedy for the secondary symptoms of human society's malaise.
Functionalism seems to emerge from the diagnostic clinic, not the
drug counter, of the internationalist movement.

On the other hand, the student of international organization
will do well to keep his critical wits about him when he is con-
fronted with the functional answer to the problem of world order.
The impressiveness of the theory and attractiveness of the pro-
gram of functionalism are not in themselves evidence of either the
theoretical validity or the practical adequacy of this approach to
peace. The testing of functionalism may well begin with the
posing of some fundamental questions in regard to its basic
assumptions.

The central thesis that war is a product of unsatisfactory eco-
nomic and social conditions in the global community should
arouse a bn of skeptical eyebrow-arching. Charles Malik of
Lebanon has stated the challenge to the clichd: “The poor, the
sick, the dispossessed, must certainly be done justice to. But to
suppose that there will be peace when everybody is materially
happy and comfortable, is absolute nonsense.” » Hans Kelsen has
insisted upon reversing the functionalist proposition: "It is not
true that war is the consequence of unsatisfactory economic con-
ditions; on the contrary, the unsatisfactory situation of world
economy is the consequence of war.” The recent history of the
world clearly fails to confirm the existence of a direct correlation
etwcen national economic backwardness and aggressiveness; it
svas advanced Germans, not primitive Africans, who shattered
wot peace in 1939. The debate concerning the role of economic
actors an motivations in world politics is an involved and quite
possi y an m terminable one. certainly not one to be settled here.
The point is that the analysis of the causes of war and the condi-
10 ns of peace falls into the category of unfinished business, and
hLJ k a * Sum P tl f ns underpin the functional approach

.h^w be regarded a, hypothec, not er.abH.hed vernier.

ie ogica apparatus of functionalism, involving the concepts

■ United Nations Bulletin. May J, 1951, p. <59,
p. Thteni l h Lm> (Chapel Hill: Unirertlty of North Carolina Pro*. 1M<).

THE FUNCTIONAL APPROACH TO PEACE 387

system. There is room for doubt that functionalists have found
the key which infallibly opens the doors that keep human loyal-
ties piled up in sovereign warehouses, thereby permitting those
loyalties to spill out into the receptacles of internationalism.

Finally, it must be noted that functionalism is not in a hurry,
and its claim to offer hope to the world is implicitly based upon
the supposition that a long period is both necessary and available
for working out solutions to the problems of the world. How
much time does man have at his disposal for building the founda-
tions of peace? The honest answer probably is that no one can say,
and the urgent insistence of doctrinaires that the sand is running
out and that quick solutions are certainly possible because they
are obviously necessary is no more worthy of uncritical acceptance
than the smug assumption of functionalists that there is a long
run and their stodgy insistence that there is no satisfactory sub-
stitute for the methods of gradualism. Nevertheless, there is ample
justification in the atomic age for giving serious thought to the
question of time limits; as Carlos Romulo suggested at the tenth
anniversary meeting of the United Nations,

Our clients are the next generation ... but there may be no next
generation unless we do today what has to be done for the two
billion clients who are now alive.

What makes our age unique, I suppose, is ilnt the immediate
questions and the ultimate questions are locked together.* 9

The Practice of Functionalism

Functionalism is not merely a recipe to be studied, but also a
pudding to be tasted; the twentieth century has seen the transfer
of functionalism from the cookbooks and experimental kitchens
to the serving tables of international organization. Hence, the
major business of evaluation must be related to an examination of
the actual dish.

The founders of the League were in disagreement as to the
emphasis which should be placed upon nonpolitical matters.
Wilson was inclined to minimize this aspect of the work of inter-
national organization, and his attitude comported with the tend-
ency of the United Stairs toward hasty withdrawal from the ap*

• Vo't Time I, June M. 1955.

order. If economic and social organization is indeed the horse,
can it in fact pull the political cart? This is again an area of
legitimate doubt.

The concentric circle theory is subject to the criticism that it
begs some very big questions in assuming that the dropping of
the functional pebble produces a steady progression of ever-
widening circles of cooperation, reaching out without limit to en-
compass finally the whole area of the international pond. This
metaphorical concept makes sense only if it can be assumed that
the global waters offer a placid surface for the rippling-out process;
in fact, the lashing winds and roaring waves of world politics are
always likely to play havoc with the developing pattern of func-
tional circles. The problem of the recurrent setback, the interrup-
tion and disruption by war of the projects of functionalism for the
eventual elimination of war, poses a critical dilemma. Moreover,
it is not lightly to be assumed that the expansibility of the con-
centric circle pattern is unlimited. There may be barriers to the
encirclement of vital political areas which the momentum of
functional development cannot cross. Functionalism cannot guar-
antee that one thing leads inexorably and interminably to an-
other in international relations.

The assumption of the rational transference of human loyalties
is also a fit subject for skeptical scrutiny. How malleable is
human allegiance? Do men actually shift their emotional bonds so
as always to keep them connected with the entities from which
their real blessings flow? Can functional agencies do enough, fast
enough, conspicuously enough, to capture the imagination of
peoples and elicit from them the rational recognition of, and
consequent emotional dedication to, the values of an organized
international community? Functional activities are likely to be
helpful, but unlikely to be stirring and sensational; international
agencies are likely to find themselves stimulating and facilitating
the provision of services and solution of problems by national
states, with the credit redounding to the states rather than being
entered to the account of internationalism. If this were not so,
governments could be expected to arrange that it should become
so, since the responsible agents of national states are not likely to
wax enthusiastic about the sponsorship and subsidization of proj-
ects lor undermining the normative foundations of the state

THE FUNCTIONAL APPROACH TO PP ACF S80

function to a special body without the political orientation of the
Council and the concentration of greater emphasis upon the de-
velopment of economic and social agencies ,** reflected a conscious
urge to achieve the fuller application of the doctrines of func-
tionalism. This report came too late to infiuence the further de-
velopment of the League, but it contributed significantly to the
formulation of the United Nations Charter.

In retrospect, the successes scored by its functional agencies
seem to be the main redeeming features of the record of the
League, and its demonstration of the potentialities of interna-
tional cooperation in areas furthest removed from the vital issues
of power politics may be regarded as the League's most enduring
contribution to the modem world. It is curious that Wilson, who
was so enamored of the idea that economic cooperation could
provide an effective sanction for collective security, was so cool to
the doctrine of functionalism. The record of the League suggests
that he should have reversed these attitudes; the League did not
discover the key to peace, but it pointed to the tentative con-
clusion that functionalism reflects a sounder view than Wilson’s
as to the relationship between economic and social matters and
the problem of world order.

The designers of the world’s new organizational system after
World War II assigned major importance to the creation of
machinery for international collaboration in economic and social
fields. Pre-existing special-purpose agencies were retained, re-
modeled, or replaced, and new ones were instituted to round out
the battery of functional institutions. These organizations, which
soon numbered ten, 8 * were affiliated with the United Nations as
Specialized Agencies. The central organization was equipped with
an Economic and Social Council, subordinate to the General As-
sembly, which in turn created an elaborate apparatus and set itself
to the tasks of supplementing and coordinating the functional

“ Special Supplement to the Monthly Summary of the League of Nations, August
19S9.

^Tne ten are as Wtowj: Iftfttrrnfntncft Wuur OngarfosAwti, Tturfi atA #tgrVccA-
ture Organization, United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organiza-
tion, International Civil Aviation Organization, International Bank for Reconstruc-
tion and Development, International Monetary Fund, World Health Organization,
Universal Postal Union, International Telecommunication Union, and World
Meteorological Organization An eleventh, the Inter-Governmental Maritime Con-
sultative Organization, had not yet become operative in July 19S5,

388

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

paratus of economic collaboration in which it had participated
during hostilities. However, British influence and particularly the
eloquent insistence of General Smuts 30 brought about the in-
clusion of Articles 23-25 in the Covenant. These established a
rather vague mandate for League excursions into the functional
area. The creation of the International Labor Organization pro-
vided the only real basis for the expectation that a significant
experiment in the application of functionalism was to be
launched.

In operation, the League bestowed constantly growing emphasis
upon the development of functional aspects of international or-
ganization. It established technical organizations and committees
in various fields, sponsored international conferences for dealing
with particular problems, carried out pioneering enterprises in
international technical assistance, and gradually emerged as an
active center for stimulating and coordinating multilateral efforts
to cope with the complexities of modern economic and social
problems. 81 Whether because of increasing awareness of needs,
clearer recognition of opportunities, or the urgent necessity for
finding new uses for the League machinery to compensate for its
failures in the political realm, the members of the League turned
the organization into the functionalist path.

Except for the recognition of the autonomy of the ILO, the
League system was formally committed to the principle of the
central control and direction of the machinery of international
cooperation by the Council.** This arrangement had the advan-
tagc of giving members of the Council constructive work to
manage and experience in the pursuit of common interests, which
may have kept them in better psychological tone than a steady
diet of quarrels and conflicts, 83 but it also doomed the nonpolitical
activities of the League to less attentive and less expert treatment
than they might otherwise have received, as well as to involvement
in the hyperpolitical atmosphere of the Council. Hence, the
recommendations of the Bruce Committee for a thoroughgoing
revision of the system, including the transfer of the directive

" Walters A Hi, lory of the League of Nations, I, 59.

' A,ms - Methods and Activity of the League of Nations (Revised edition;

Leaeue of Njii™ iora\ iw.m

Geneva; Secretariat of the League of
Covenant. Article 24.

"Cf. Murray. From the League to ILN, p. 8]

i. 1938), pp 64-76. 122-173.

THE FUNCTIONAL APPROACH TO PEACE 391

panded Technical Assistance Program, a coordinated project of
the United Nations and several Specialized Agencies, which is the
most significant expression of the enlarged concern of con-
temporary international organization with the application of
functionalism.

The development of the United Nations system has inspired
such comments as these:

the world is now looking at its problems in the round. It is no
longer content with sporadic attempts at settlement of sporadic
disputes. It has learned that the problem of war is only a p art of
the international problem, and that it must tackle the underlying
causes of conflict and the consequences of strife. Jt has also learned
that there is a continuing agenda of routine business, each item of
which is a minute part of the structure of a world society .* 8
Never in the history of mankind has an attack on the first causes
of war been launched on so many fronts and with the mobilization
of comparable scientific resources.**

It is conceivable that, in the perspective of history, the mid-
twentieth century will be regarded, not as an era of cold war and
deep divisive conflict, but as the time when the world began
actively to grow together.

The functional experiment of the United Nations is full-scale
in terms of the number of international agencies and the diversity
of the technical, economic, social, and humanitarian problems
which are placed within their range. But to say that tire agencies
are competent to deal with problems is not to say that they are
equipped to solve them. The experiment is decidedly less than
full-scale in terms of the conferment upon functional agencies of
authority to make decisions, to order compliance, to command
resources, and to initiate and conduct activities.

To a limited extent, organs of the United Nations system have
acquired powers of a legislative and executive nature in regard to
their special substantive areas, including the responsibility for
framing technical regulations and die right ot following up the
passage of resolutions by methods considerably more meaningful
than the mere expression of hope for faithful implementation by

•Feller, The United Xattont and World Community, p. J 19.

Collective Security, p. 22.

THE FUNCTIONAL APPROACH TO PEACE

393

by the fact that the Specialized Agencies have an autonomous
status based upon their own constitutional documents, non-
identical membership lists, and widely scattered headquarters.

The San Francisco Conference evolved no clear conception of
the pattern of relationships which should prevail in the de-
centralized organizational system of the postwar era, but con-
tented itself with providing in the Charter that the special-purpose
organizations should negotiate agreements with the United Na-
tions , 41 which would define the extent to which and the means by
which they would be welded into a coordinated system by the
Economic and Social Council. The negotiations which were un-
dertaken in pursuance of that basic policy decision revealed the
development of an interesting and potentially significant new
factor in international relations: the “sovereignty consciousness”
of international agencies. For instance, the spokesmen for the In-
ternational Labor Organization displayed a keen sense of institu-
tional self-importance, expressed in the remark that they proposed
"to seek cooperation with the UN as partners. To this end they
might have to make some sacrifices of their sovereignty, but they
did not intend to act in a subordinate capacity.” 42 Evidence is
growing that international agencies are fully capable of develop-
ing vested interests and “empire-building” tendencies; indeed, it
may not be merely idle speculation to suggest that the world of
the future, having finally conquered the assertiveness of sovereign
states, may be confronted with the nasty problem of knocking to-
gether the heads of sovereign international organizations. The
pacts concluded between the central organization and the Spe-
cialized Agencies are, in large measure, agreements to agree.

The problem of coordination has been further complicated by
the tendency of the Economic and Social Council to generate its
own quota of institutional offspring, new units requiring controls
to prevent their overlapping and conflicting with each other as
well as with established agencies outside the United Nations
proper. This has posed the question of who is to coordinate the
coordinators. Moreover, the member states of the United Nations
have given free rein to their instinct of institutional procreativity,
siring regional and other limited-membership agencies with some-

** Articles 57, 63.

“United Nations Document E/NSA/1J, June 10, 1946.

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

392

states. Some advance has also been made toward development of
actual operational competence by international agencies; the
temporary International Refugee Organization, set up to deal
with the massive human displacement of the immediate postwar
period, and the participating agencies of the technical assistance
program are striking examples of international bodies which have
directly administered and managed field programs, doing jobs
through their own personnel and with their own budgetary re-
sources.

However, the primary functions of United Nations machinery
have been of a more modest nature. They have included fact-
finding, research into the nature and magnitude of problems,
idea-sharing, sponsorship of consultation among experts and re-
sponsible officials of national governments, and encouragement
of the standardization and harmonization of national programs
and policies. In short, international agencies have been largely
confined to the work of helping governments to help themselves
and encouraging governments to help each other. What the former
Director-General of the World Health Organization wrote con-
cerning his organization applies generally to the whole system:

WHO is not a supra national health administration. It cannot act
in place of and for the national health authorities in any area of
public health. Its only role is to use all possible means of inter-
national co-operation in order to provide certain essential elements
which those authorities need to promote the health of their peoples.
The rest is up to each individual nation itself. 40

Evaluation of Functional Practice

The evaluation of functionalism in operation may well begin
with an examination of the problem of coordinating the instru-
ments of international collaboration. Since World War II, there
has been such a proliferation of multilateral mechanisms that it
has seemed that the world was in danger of being overwhelmed by
the sheer complexity of its apparatus. The difficulty of creating
and maintaining order in the United Nations workshop, so as to
avoid wasteful duplication of effort and loss of efficiency through
the friction of agencies svorking at cross-purposes, is compounded
* Rrrak Omholm. in United Xahont Bulletin, December l. 1951. p. 4 < G -

THE FUNCTIONAL .

PROACII TO PI

ment and big international organization, a certain amount of
confusion and inefficiency is inevitable, and it may even be
salutary. The problem of coordination in the United Nations
system will never be solved, and ought never to be abolished, but
it seems likely that it can be managed. .

A closely related problem of functionalism in operation is that
oE maintaining a reasonably clear and restricted focus of interna-
tional activities and a keen sense of discrimination in determining
the allocation of limited resources. The tendency toward excessive
proliferation is matched by the tendency toward und.sc.pl.ned
scattering of organizational efforts. Functionalism is e icate o
the proposition that there are many roads to peace, but it does not
envisage the exploration of every back street and country ane
that any member of the party finds fascinating.

Postwar functional agencies have experienced difficulty in con-
centrating on important matters, rejecting trivia] proposals, and
abjuring interesting diversions. They stand in constant peril o
being treated as hobbyhorses to be ridden off in all directions a
once. Pressures for indulgence in irrelevances emanate in part
from governmental representatives, who in many cases find it
difficult to vote against any proposal requ.r.ng the staff to con-
duct a special ttudy, as to vote for any measure increasing he
budgetary responsibility of their states. Such pressure, also derive
from secretariat officials in agencies which are to a large degree
the property of their sniff, and special constituencies 1 and m
which governments are practically confined to the tasks of paying
the bills and exercising sporadic and ineffectual policy control.

This situation appear, to prevail parttcularly “ UNESCO,
which could easily degenerate into a mere international playhou
of intellectuals, scholars, artists, and esthetes. This agency ha, sup
ported a goodly number of admirable enterprises which are a
best very tenuously related to the task of creating the
of world order; Herman Melville m.ght have been wrmn a
prophetic satire on some UNESCO aa.vit.es when he spun out
the argument that the most powerful force for peace was the
high and mighty business of whaling." « The nature ° f UNESCO
lem is well fllus.ra.ed by a book written by a former UNESCO
official, Theodore Besterman, who clearly regards the staff

“ Jt.S, D.rt (New York: Dodd. Me>A 1922). PP- 9» 99.

391 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

thing approaching abandon. The result of all this activity is that
the world is so filled with a chaotic jumble of specialized instru-
mentalities of multilateral cooperation, within the United Na-
tions, attached to the United Nations, and divorced from the
United Nations, that governmental chiefs can hardly be expected
to remember to what organizations their states belong, much less
to develop consistent national policies toward and within those
organizations. If conflict is the major problem of international
political organization, confusion is an equally serious problem in
the functional sphere.

The record of the United Nations is not entirely unimpressive
in dealing with this problem. One of the earliest tasks of the
Economic and Social Council was to serve as a kind of "Hoover
Commission" for the international community, and it achieved a
considerable rationalization of the world's haphazard institutional
pattern, even though it has not subsequently been able to curb
tendencies to re-create confusion and duplication. The Council
has established a Coordination Committee, with representation
of the United Nations and the Specialized Agencies at the top
administrative level, which has accomplished more significant
results than were registered in the formal agreements negotiated
under Article 63. Most importantly, the cooperative conduct of
the work of technical assistance has produced both formal and
informal arrangements for coordination; teamwork has been
stimulated by the challenge of concrete problems far more ef-
fectively than by the abstract desire to realize the ideal of institu-
tional tidiness. In carrying out this program, the United Nations
has acquired a hold on the strings of the international purse
which is used for the support of technical assistance projects,
thereby gaining a potential power to direct the activities of
Specialized Agencies which is analogous to the coordinative effect
of the grant-in-aid” technique used by the Federal Government
in its relations with American states.

In the final analysis, the profusion of international agencies
may be evidence of the vitality of the idea of international com-
munity, and the confusion may simply prove that multilateral
institutions, like national ones, are owned and operated by human
beings, after all, the tangle is no tvorse in the global system than
in Washington or other national capitals. In an era of big govern-

THE FUNCTIONAL APPROACH TO PEACF 397

This point has been increasingly recognized. In 1950, the lead-
ing professional officials of the Specialized Agencies were tom
between asserting the doctrine, enshrined in the constitutional
documents of the agencies, that functional activities would bring
an end to political conflict, and warning that political conflict
would put an end to functional activities; they ended up by
stressing the latter point.** The Director-General of the World
Health Organization, for instance, expressed the view that peace
was a prerequisite for the successful working of the Specialized
Agencies, thus implicitly adopting the position that the preamble
to the constitution of his own agency should be altered to read,
not “The health of all peoples is fundamental to the attainment
of peace and security," but rather “The health of all peoples is
dependent upon the attainment of peace and security.” The ac-
tual order of priorities, as distinguished from the order assumed
by functionalism, dictates the preliminary analysis of the influ-
ence of politics upon organized economic and social cooperation.

The two great political struggles which have developed in the
United Nations, the cold war between the Soviet Communist bloc
and the anti-Communist bloc led by the United States, and the
separate but closely intertwined conflict between the non-Euro-
pean attackers of colonialism and the heirs of the colonial system,
have both impinged sharply upon functional operations. Sepa-
rately and in combination, they have decisively affected the an-
swers to basic questions of national participation, of the uses to
which the machinery of collaboration can and should be put, and
of the scope and distribution of the functional effort. In general,
they have decreed that the United States should lead and direct
the enterprise, making it primarily an element of the anti-Com-
munist program and secondarily a device for alleviating the
tensions of the struggle over colonialism. The Soviet Union has
followed a policy of large-scale abstention, tempered mainly by
participation for the purpose of denouncing and frustrating the
A/mrics!) management of she system; and she smdesdeveJoped
states, a group which largely coincides with the anticolonial bloc.

“See United Kationi Bulletin, October 15. IO'iO, pp 313-316. and Annual Be port
at the Secretary-General on the IFor* of the Organization, July 1. 19(9 June 30,

1 9 >0, United Nations General Assembly. Official Records, 5tb Session. Supplement
No 1. p 88.

3% SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

real UNESCO, looks upon member states as necessary evils, and
wishes that representatives of governments would simply meet to
vote large budgets and then quickly adjourn to leave the secre-
tariat unhampered in its pursuit of such objectives as the com-
pilation of an international catalog of recorded music or the in-
vestigation of "how the artist lives.” **

This is not to deny that UNESCO has contributed usefully to
the solution of fundamental problems of world society, or that
the international civil service is worthy of being granted a con-
siderable share of influence in shaping the programs of inter-
national agencies. But the point is important that functional
agencies are legitimate parts of the institutional structure of a
world which desperately needs peace only if they maintain the
steady pursuit of objectives reasonably related to the quest for
peace. The resources of international organization in the mid-
twentieth century are too limited to permit their being frittered
away on trivialities.

The most basic questions to be faced in evaluating the work-
ing experiment in functionalism which is being conducted under
the auspices of the United Nations are political questions. Func-
tional theory invites this kind of examination, since its emphasis
upon economic and social matters is explicitly justified in terms of
ultimate political impact; functional experience demands it, since
the intrusion of political factors is almost invariably one of the
earliest facts of life brought to bear upon a fledgling agency for
international cooperation in any field whatever.

The clearest lesson of United Nations experience is that func-
tionalism's assumption of the preliminary separability of political
and nonpolitical matters does not hold true — not in this genera-
tion, at any rate. We are not vouchsafed the privilege of warming
up the motors of international collaboration in a sheltered area
of concordant interests, getting off to an easy start and building
up momentum for crashing the barriers of conflicting interests
that interpose between us and the ideal oE world order. The
dilemma of functionalism is that its ultimate impact upon politics
may never be tested because of the immediate impact of politics
upon functionalism. i

" UNESCO: Peace in the Minds of Men (New York: Praegcr, 1951), pp 59. 63.

THE FUNCTION At AFFKOACB TO KACt

objectives of United Sates foreign policy, bet it ik* expose
them to the internal political pxtiliuiaes ef the American jocjjc.
The self-assertiveness oE Congress, a defensive reaetscsn » ex-
pansion of the significance of the executive branch in the Ameri-
can constitutional system, is expressed in insistence upon beeping
functional agencies tied tightly to the purse strings which Con-
gress holds, occasional attempts to extend Congressional patronise
privileges to international organs, and such P.agrant outbtmts as
Senator Capehart's objection to American participation in the
proposed International Finance Corporation on the ground that
it appeared likely that the agency would, quite improperly in his
view, be beyond the reach of Congressional authority to subpoena
its records and collar its officials for investigative purposes.” The
Congressional urge to control does not stop at the boundary lines
of the American governmental system.

The political issues of states’ rights and timrnmmcled free en-
terprise are also transmitted by American predominance to the
international functional system, where they have significant im-
pact. International cooperation in economic and social fields re-
quires the participation of national governments which have suf-
ficient domestic authority in those fields to be able to cooperate.
This is precisely the status which jealous champions of states'
rights and defenders of pre-New Deal free enterprise wish to deny
to the Federal Government of the United States. Hence, the func-
tional pTOgTam of the United Nations is subjected to the leader-
ship of a government svhich either does not have, or frequently
thinks it impolitic to assert, the domestic competence to accept
and carry out extensive commitments relative to economic anti
social policy, and svhich therefore tends to oppose the develop-
ment of international policy standards. This American tendency
has been most marked under the Elsenhower Administration, hut
it did not originate with the Republican assumption of power in
Washington. The United States stands aloof ftom the Genocide
Convention, rejects most conventions formulated by the Inter-
national I-nbor Organization, registers its rejection in advance of
conventions in the human rights field, and generally proposes to
abstain from further participation in the international legislative
development of global standards of economic and social policy,
*-,W 1 oik Ihnr,. June 7, 1013

398

SWdtPI INTO fl.OWlllAIM

has tended to resent the anti-Commmmt orientation determined
by the United States, and to demand the appropriation of a
greater share of a much larger functional budget to meet the
needs of their aspiring peoples.

The crucial political fact of the United Nations functional sys-
tem is the dominant position asuimed by the United States, for
reasons which include the unrivaled economic stature and the
general political importance of this country as veil as the dis-
inclination of the Soviet Union to compete for the role of leader-
ship in this realm. This fact carries with it a tendency for the
agencies of economic and social action to l>ccome excessively re*
liant upon the supjxirt, and particularly the financial supjxirt. of
the United States. Such heavy dependence upon a single power
inevitably minimizes the international flavor of the functional
program. Stated differently, the unique position held by the
United States serves as the basis for excessive Amctiean control.
This control is in the first instance negative: the United States
has a financial veto power which it has used to accomplish such
purposes as the termination of the United Nations Relief ami
Rehabilitation Administration and the International Refugee Or*
gani ration, and the blocking of efforts to establish a world food
pool under the Food and Agriculture Organization and to create
a special international development authority. It extends also to
the positive direction of policy. As Paul G. Hoffman innocently
put it in Congressional testimony, he maintained such personal
relations with the successive Presidents of the International Rank
for Reconstruction and Development during his service as head
of the Marshall Plan administration that
we had no problem, because we discussed all these loans they s*ere
thinking of making and they Sscre always good enough to come to us
and say. “What about the impact of this loan to Turkey? Do you
think we ought to go ahead with it?'* Tint was informal and that
u one of the best ways of control. . . .««

American predominance not only has the effect of permitting
the harnessing of international cooperative mechanisms to the

Attain* nl“ tUa, . S ? UTtty Pro C r4m ' before the Commuter on Foreign

frnm.ni a ' ‘‘'P'esrntatives. S2n4 Congreu, lit Session (Washington: Cov*
"rr,rr;s l95, >. P- cued In Cuy J. Pauler. Obstacles to rrog-

s - ruterilfvelopfd Countries: Some Pol, lira! Considerations (Harvard l’nl*
y. unpublished doctoral dissertation. 1552), pp. J82 SSS.

400 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

Given tlie various bases of hostility toward the functional en-
terprise which exist in the United States, including the reaction
against the political mentality which was epitomized by the New
Deal, it is perhaps surprising that the United States should be a
major participant. Indeed, it is probably accurate to qualify the
assertion that this country is the leader of the functional system
by saying that the United States supports international programs
designed to produce effects in other countries which are com-
patible with American purposes — and which the United States
does not opt to produce by alternative methods more fully subject
to its own control — but that it tends to be an abstainer, rather
than a leader, in regard to functional projects which might have
an impact upon its own domestic affairs.

Hardly less important than the fact that American foreign pol-
icy and domestic political tendencies impinge upon the work of
the functional agencies is the fact that the Soviet bloc largely
stands outside the cooperative system. During the formative stage
of the United Nations, the Soviet Union exhibited very little
interest in the establishment of the functional elements of the
system; once the economic and social agencies were created, it
refrained from all but the most spotty and limited participation.
This general policy may appear strange for a state which professes
adherence to Marxism, a doctrinal system which stresses the fun-
damental importance of economic problems and the secondary
character of political phenomena. But the Soviet Union’s posi-
tion was in fact basically consistent with its ideological profes-
sions. Orthodox Marxism does not permit the assumption that
cooperation among states which are predominantly capitalistic
can do for the world what Marx said only a global series of Com-
munist revolutions can do One who views reality through the
peculiar spectacles of Marxism cannot be expected to believe that
capitalist states will cooperate in good faith with Communist
powers, or that the Communist fatherland can properly join in
the promotion of such nefarious projects of world capitalism as an
International Bank, or in the spreading of such noxious doctrines
as the proposition of UNESCO that wars begin in the minds of
men rather than in the rotten structures of capitalist economies.

For whatever reasons — and they certainly include others than

403

THE FUNCTIONAL APPROACH TO PEACE

Lie, Trygve. In the Cause of Peace, New York: Macmillan, 1954,
Chap. IX.

Matecki, B. E., Establishment of the International Finance Corporation
and United States Policy, New York: Praegcr, 1957.

Mitrany, David, A Working Peace System, London and New York:
Royal Institute of International Adairs, 194G.

Mjrdal, Gunnar, An International Economy, New York: Harper, 1956.

Sharp, Walter R., International Technical Assistance, Chicago: Public
Administration Service, 1952.

Swcetser, Arthur, ‘The Non-Political Achievements of the League,"
Foreign Affairs, October 1940, pp. 179-192.

Yates, P. L., So Bold an Aim: Ten Years of International Cooperation
Toward Freedom From Want, Rome: FAO, 1955.

402 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

international working team may prove to be major contributions
to the future development of human civilization. In substantive
terms, they have hardly been able to keep up with the job of
making the world a livable place; the gap between the living
standards of developed and underdeveloped countries is steadily
widening, and many of the latter countries are swimming against
a demographic current which forces them to push forward with
great speed in order simply to remain in the same place. Never-
theless, the situation of mankind is less unsatisfactory than it
would have been without the strenuous international efforts of
the last decade.

The functional experiment of the United Nations represents
the laying of the groundwork for the first systematic global attack
upon basic economic and social problems, the beginning of the
definition of the assignment which devolves upon the organized
international community, and the initiation of the process of
learning how to tackle the job. The actual achievements thus far
are substantial and significant, even though not spectacular,
world-shaking, or world-saving. Above all, the record to date indi-
cates that functional activity is, at least in the short run, more de-
pendent upon the political weather than determinative of the
political weather. In the long run, however, it may be that the
economic and social work of international organization will prove
to be one oE the means of developing a system whereby man can
control his political climate.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Asher, Robert E., et al., The United Nations and the Promotion of the
General Welfare, Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1957.
Barr, Stringrellow, Citizens of the World, Garden City: Doubleday,
1953. 1

Davis, Harriet E„ ed.. Pioneers in World Order, New York: Columbia
University Press, 1944 .

Laves, Walter H. C., and Charles A. Thomson, UNESCO: Purpose,
rogress. Prospects, Bloomington: Indiana University Press 1957.

THE FUTURE
OF WORLD
ORDER

-»>;«-

World Government and
World Order

The vision of a unified world, freed from the anarchy of tribal-
istic strife among organized fragments of the human race and
possessed of a government able to dispense justice and maintain
order among all men, has long captured the prophetic imagina-
tion of a few philosophers and poets. A much more mundane
version of the One World concept has actuated a procession of
conquerors and would-be conquerors, who have been dedicated
to the ambition of ruling the world rather than to the ideal that
the world should be ruled, and who have sought to extend their
power over all men rather than to provide a just and stable peace
for all men. The noble ideal, as distinguished from the demonic
drive, has not entered significantly into the picture of world po-
litical reality in times past.

The Movement for World Government

Since World War II, the concept of a world government
achieved by consent and directed toward the supreme moral pur-
poses of aspiring humanity has ceased to be the exclusive property
of dreamy theorists. It has become a cause rather than a mere
vision, a project rather than a mere ideal. Organizations for the
promotion of world government, usually conceived in terms of a

407

WORLD GOVERNMENT AND WORLD ORDER 409

the evils of anarchy. The United Nations undertakes to improve
the techniques and machinery of the system, to improve the states
which are its constituent units, and to improve the people who
are its ultimate components. Its objectives are these: to prevail
upon governments to settle their quarrels peacefully, persuade
them to behave reasonably, and debar them from acting aggres-
sively; to promote the abandonment of old areas of controversy
and the anticipatory resolution of problems that threaten to be-
come sources of discord; to facilitate the development of national
societies characterized by such economic and social well-being, re-
spect for human rights, and political maturity that they will
produce decent, cooperative, responsible governments; and to edu-
cate human beings to renounce nationalistic arrogance and ideo-
logical intolerance, helping them to become spiritually and
morally fit for participation in the collaborative enterprises of a
world community of separate but interdependent states. By such
means, international organization purports to offer hope of mak-
ing the multistate system work reasonably well. The movement
for world government, on the other hand, is animated by the con-
viction that this hope is a snare and a delusion, and that a revo-
lutionary transformation of the global political system offers the
only meaningful prospect for achieving world order.

Actually, however, the distinctiveness of the advocacy of world
government has definite limits. Many thinkers who are outside
the fold accept the fundamental end of world government, while
insisting upon means which are associated with international
organization. For instance, functionalists or supporters of the
UNESCO concept of international cooperation for changing the
minds of men may look forward to the ultimate development of
global institutions which will be more governmental than organi-
zational in nature. Others may find themselves in substantial
agreement with world govemmentalists while preserving differ-
ences in regard to terminology and form; there is not necessarily
a wide gulf between the proponent of a limited world govern-
ment and the advocate of a strengthened United Nations. Indeed,
it can be argued with some merit that the major distinction of
the world government movement is that it insists upon using the
word “government."

Moreover, there are variations within the movement which

•108 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARE'

more or less limited federation of a selected group, as large a
number as possible, or the total list of the nations of the world,
have enlisted the support or active participation of prominent
leaders in many fields, and have carried on vigorous campaigns
of advocacy which have generated substantial popular support.
This is primarily a phenomenon of the Western European and
English-speaking world. The success of the movement for selling
the idea of world government should not be exaggerated; its gains
are tentative, subject to wide fluctuations as the pattern of events
changes from day to day, and much of its support is undoubtedly
purely verbalistic and abstract, representing something less than
deep commitment and firm acceptance of the practical implica-
tions of world government. The strength of the movement in the
United States is probably not so great as is assumed or asserted
either by its opponents, many of whom are neurotic conservatives
given to depicting themselves as a heroic remnant defending the
last redoubts of Americanism against a multifarious horde of sub-
versives, or by its champions, who tend to share with the bulk
of the prophetic profession an aversion to the idea that they are
doomed to crying in the wilderness. Nevertheless, the world gov-
ernment approach to world order has now achieved a sufficiently
articulate and influential body of support to justify the demand
that it be taken seriously and studied critically.

In strict theory, world government offers a distinctive approach
to the central problem of peace and security. It sees war as a neces-
sary, natural, and inescapable product of the multistate system;
consequently, it proposes to abolish and replace the system, rather
than to tinker with it. The problem of modern man is not to
correct minor flaws in the operation of the international system,
or to equip the system with improved apparatus, or to remove
wicked and foolish men from its managerial board, or to prevent
troublesome states from disrupting it, but to recognize its inher-
ent defectiveness and take the drastic step of dismantling “the
absurd architecture of the present world.” 1

In contrast, the various approaches to peace which have been
adopted by international organization involve working within
the national state system to achieve the redemption of man from

m\)% *27* ° f Man ' 4 DetlaTation on lVo7ld Democracy (New York: Viking,

WORLD GOVERNMENT AND WORLD ORDER

411

The Question of Practical Attainability

The first critical questions to be raised concerning the world
government approach to world order relate to the attainability
of its ideal and the suitability of the means used for promoting
the ideal. Is woTld government feasible in the foreseeable future?
Does persistent agitation for its achievement serve a useful pur-
pose?

There is a strong tendency among its proponents to assume
that world federalism is possible because it is believed to be neces-
sary, Internationalism grimly reminds man that he must do what
he can; world federalism more sanguinely asserts that man can
do what he must. There are no insoluble problems or unanswer-
able questions; history has no dead-end streets. Taken literally,
this is a declaration of faith at which the unbeliever may scoff,
but which he cannot disprove. He may insist upon pointing out
that mankind has solved few of its basic problems, but has at best
managed to muddle along from one partial solution to another.
Confronted with the retort that humanity has never before the
atomic age come face to face with absolute necessity and final
destiny, he may agree, and yet find himself unable to share the
conviction that all things are possible for those who stand in the
shadow of the mushroom clouds that overhang human civiliza-
tion. How literally this credo should be taken is another question.
Conviction is often a buttress for fearful uncertainty and desper-
ate hope, and in this case the declaration of possibility may be a
kind of self-administered pep-talk for those who are most deeply
convinced that world government is urgently necessary.

The literature of world government contains the recurrent
theme that the basic requisite for achievement is the circumven-
tion of the obstacles raised by the stodginess and vested interests
of national governments. Let the people speak and act, over the
heads of their governments; call a special People’s Convention,
brushing aside unimaginative politicians and selfish officials who
cannot see beyond the nose of old-fashioned national interest As
Stringfellow Barr puts it, his ambitious proposals are “based on
the assumption that if the men and women in the world wait
until national governments act, they will never get the common

410

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

make it difficult to characterize the advocacy of world government
as a distinctive approach to world problems. One finds such as-
sorted bedfellows as regionalists and universal ists, proponents of
full-fledged and of narrowly limited international government,
contemptuous critics and interim supporters of international
organization, patient gradualists and eager "one-fell-swoopists."
Some sincerely believe that world government is attainable in
the near future, while others believe merely that agitation for the
ideal will produce salutary effects on human political develop-
ment in the longer run, and still others appear to be mainly
motivated by the idea that American sponsorship and Soviet re-
jection of a sweeping proposal for establishing peace would re-
dound to the advantage of the United States in the propaganda
war with the USSR. Some seem to be disinterested spokesmen for
the interests of mankind, but others give the impression of wish-
ing to annex the world to the United States, thereby achieving
the institutionalization of the American Century concept; not all
human beings would be reassured by the notion that America
has an inevitable mission to serve as a Platonic ruler of mankind,
a proposition that led a group of prominent Americans to con-
clude in 1940 that “the United States must be the Uniting States.
No number is prescribed to the stars on its flag.” 3

When these diversities are taken into account, it is possible to
arrive at this limited generalization: the contemporary movement
for world government regards the establishment of international
federal institutions as the necessary basis of a peaceful world,
looks upon international organization as at best a step toward the
creation of such institutions, and assumes that it is useful at the
present time to engage in vigorous advocacy of the drastic altera-
tion of the global political pattern.

Since the federal form of government is so overwhelmingly the
choice of those who pursue this line, let us treat world federalism
as synonymous with the advocacy of world government. Addi-
tionally, we shall adopt the terms “internationalism" and “inter-
nationalists" to designate the doctrine and the proponents of the
doctrine that international organization rather than world gov-
ernment provides the most hopeful approach to a solution of the
world s fundamental problems of peace and security.

’ibid., pp 63 73. The quolatjon is from p 72.

WORLD GOVERNMENT AND WORLD ORDER 413

agency as independent as possible of all governments and as de-
pendent as possible on the men and women who dwell together
on this steadily shrinking planet." 9 This general evaluation of
democracy is a strangely pessimistic one for advocates of the estab-
lishment of a presumably democratic world federation. If democ-
racy works so badly in the United States that the American peo-
ple, desiring world government or at least a vigorously affirmative
approach to international cooperation, find themselves regularly
represented by legislators and officials who exhibit instead a con-
siderable stickiness about sovereignty, how can it be expected to
work satisfactorily in a global political unit?

In fact, the belief that the peoples of the world are ready and
eager to make the federalist plunge, if only they can push their
unresponsive governments aside or ahead, is not the controlling
factor in the movement for world government, for that movement
is pre-eminently a campaign to persuade human beings to accept
and support the federalist solution. As such, it tends to rely
heavily upon the persuasive potency of three major themes: the
imminent peril of atomic destruction, the utter inadequacy and
essential futility of international organization, and the availability
of salvation through the transformation of international anarchy
into international government.

There is no Toom for doubt that mankind stands in unprece-
dented danger, although civilization records a long line of pre-
mature obituaries which proved to be such less because humanity
possessed ingenious therapists than because it had fallible diag-
nosticians. In any event, there is substantial room for doubt that
the vivid display of the dangers oE atomic hell will necessarily
produce popular willingness to adopt world federation; when the
peoples of the world become desperately afraid and insecure,
those who hope for moderation, reasonableness, and constructive-
ness in international relations may have less rather than more
reason for optimism.

The instinct of the salesman to belittle the merits of inferior
substitutes poses another problem. Not all proponents of world
government regarded the incipient United Nations with such
utter contempt as did Emery Reves. who wrote that "The San
Francisco Charter is a multilateral treaty. That and nothing ebe,"

‘Op tit, p 245.

412

SWORDS INTO plows:

II ARE!

government which the world clearly needs.” * Presumably there
exists a universal sense of human solidarity which is concealed
and distorted by existing governments and which requires only
a new set of institutions to give it expression.

This is a very big assumption. It would be considerably more
credible if it could be demonstrated that the American State De-
partment had been continuously assailed for being too narrowly
nationalistic rather than for being too soft toward foreigners, that
Congress had been more consistently inclined toward interna-
tional commitment and cooperation than the Executive, and that
American taxpayers had established a record of deploring the
paucity rather than the magnitude of expenditures on behalf of
other peoples. In fact, the record makes it difficult to deny the
assertion of P. E. Corbett:

Most massive of all the checks on world organization ... is ^e
inert multitude. . . . The great majority of even relatively en-
lightened populations pay little attention to foreign affairs. This
is not the reservoir of world brotherhood, waiting to be channeled
into peaceful and universal co-operation, which it is represented to
be by the champions of world-federation. It can perhaps be per-
suaded to sound the slogans, so long as it does not understand their
bearing on its ingrained habits of thought, speech, and action. But
hostility to the out-group in this section of the population does not
have to wait for stimulation by the leadership. To assert its general
willingness to share what privileges it has with aliens of all breeds
and manners of life is to indulge in fantasy. 4

Moreover, this world federalist position reveals some curious
attitudes toward democracy. In so far as it rests upon evidence, it
looks to the results of public opinion polls, thereby betraying the
conviction that the democratic will is more reliably expressed
through those devices than through the normal electoral processes.
The notion that majority rule can be exercised through appoin-
tive officials responsible to elected representatives is quite gen-
erally repudiated by champions of world government; the people
will be truly represented only by spokesmen chosen by direct
election. In Barr’s terms, what is necessary is “an international
by Stri^fcllow l Barr FO,M {Gllden Clt l" Doubleday. 1953). p 160. Copyright. 1932.
p 289 M ^ i0C,el ? in the Rations of Slates (New York: HarcnurC, Brace, 1951).

WORLD GOVERNMENT AND WORLD ORDER 415

paign is dearly debarred from operating at all in major sectors
of the world, including most prominently the territory of the
USSR. I£ the need is urgent and the time is short, the project of
establishing a global federation by persuading peoples all over
the world to support the idea and relying upon them to make
their newly formulated demands politically effective — which in-
volves, in many cases, the overthrow of dictatorial systems which
thrive on the suppression of the popular will — seems doomed to
utter ineffectuality. World federalists are men in a hurry, but
they have chosen a long, long road.

Beyond the questions of whether people can be persuaded and
whether they can, if persuaded, do anything about it on a global
scale, the basic issue arises: is the real task that of persuading
people to accept or initiate drastic institutional change, or is it
rather that of preparing people, changing them, making them fit
for world government? The latter formulation would seem to
characterize the problem much better. What is required is the
profound alteration of attitudes, loyalties, attachments, and val-
ues, which in turn involves an attack upon the basic conditions
of human society that provide the context within which men are
shaped. This is clearly not an overnight process, and it is clearly
not to be conducted like a propaganda campaign. In fact, it is
precisely the kind of work which the United Nations system, par-
ticularly in its functional agencies, is carrying on. It is quite pos-
sible that an ounce of international organizational service and
experience is worth a pound of world governmental sermons
pointing out the inadequacy of international organization.

World federalism suffers from a much too literal acceptance
of the social contract theory. Finding the nations in a state of
nature which has become intolerable, it prescribes an apocalyptic
leap out of anarchy into social order. It is an excessively mecha-
nistic and rationalistic doctrine, relying upon the ingenious in-
vention, rationally conceived, contrived, and accepted; in pseudo-
LocUan. fashion, it postulates a flash of creativity which carries
mankind into the era of order. This is a dramatic and challenging
conception, but its accuracy bears some examination.

In the first place, it is not good Lochian doctrine. Although the
contract theorists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
seemed to attribute political community to a deliberate and de-

414 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

and denied with dogmatic finality that it was or could be even
a useful first step toward world order * As the history of revolu-
tionary movements bears out, however, advocates of drastic change
can hardly avoid the conviction that reform is worse than useless,
since it offers palliatives which reduce the sense of revolutionary
urgency without actually affecting the ultimate necessity for rev-
olution. World govemmentalists have proved sensitive to the
charge of impeding the development of maximum effectiveness
by the United Nations, and have largely turned from their initial
emphasis upon the stupidity of expecting anything good to come
from international organization to affirmative support of the in-
ternational institutions which, however imperfect they may be,
have the important virtue of being in existence. In the nature of
the case, however, this support is highly tentative and dubiously
effective; it is not much good telling people that, on the one hand,
they ought to support the United Nations, and, on the other
hand, the United Nations is doomed to futility because it repre-
sents a fundamentally unsound approach to the problem of world
order. In truth, there is reason to believe that world federalists
have undertaken to capture rather than to support the world or-
ganization; setting their eyes on a possible Charter Review Con-
ference in 1956, they have focused their hopes upon the project
of a constitutional revision which will convert the United Nations
from an international organization into a world federation.
Given the basic assumption that nothing short of world govern-
ment will do, there is obvious merit in the proposition that it
is the hopeful transformation, not the hopeless operation, of inter-
national organization that is most deserving of support.

Aside from questions relating to the tactics used in the cam-
paign to sell the idea of world government, there are more fun-
damental issues bearing upon the validity of the persuasion tech-
nique itself. It is questionable whether the campaign can be
successful in the foreseeable future, considering, among other fac-
tors, the strength of the competitive propaganda which the advo-
cacy of world government generates, and the fact that the cam-

• The Anatomy of Peace (New York- Pocket Books. 1946). p. 87. This paper-
bound edition is a revised version ot the original book, published in 1915 “7
Harper and Brothers

»Cf Grenville Clark and Louis B. Sohn, Peace through Disarmament and
Charter Revision (Preliminary print, July 195S)

world government and world order 417

he not only consented but he became something of a hero for it.
... Of course. I don’t quite see the distinction between dropping
it on Milwaukee and dropping it on Hiroshima. The difference is a
“we” difference. The people in Milwaukee, though we don’t know
any of them, are “we,” and the people in Hiroshima are “they,”
and the great psychological problem is how to make everybody
“we,” at least in some small degree. The degree need be only
extremely small. . . . All that is necessary to create the psycho-
logical foundations of a world society is that people in Maine should
feel the same degree of responsibility toward the people of Japan
or Chile or Indo-China as they feel toward California. That is pretty
small, really, hut it is apparently enough to create the United
States.®

There is an unmistakable tinge of brashness in the pretension to
certainty that man can, in a magnificent spasm of resolve, catapult
himself from a perilously divided and anarchical state into a
situation of political unity capable of sustaining the essential in-
strumentalities of peace and order.

The maintenance of a decent respect for the bounds of our own
ignorance is compatible with the observation that it is illogical
to cite the relative failure of the United Nations as evidence of
the need for world government and to fail to cite it as evidence of
the improbability that mankind is now capable of creating and
sustaining a more ambitious institutional structure. The dilemma
of the world federalist is that there is no necessary correlation
between human need and human capacity. If the United Nations
had worked exceedingly well in its first decade, the campaigner
for world government would have a weaker argument for the
urgency of his project but a vastly stronger one for its feasibility;
since the United Nations has had very limited success, it is easy
to argue that much more drastic measures are necessary but diffi-
cult to prove that they are possible. There is little in the record
to indicate that the Charter sets the standards too low, that there
are reservoirs of international solidarity which the United Na-
tions leaves untapped, that the peoples of the world are straining
to exceed the narrow bounds of collective commitment and action
which the Charter sets, and that the nation* are ready and able to
achieve a greater pooling of sovereignty and acceptance of obliga-

* Quincy Wright, trl , The tt’orU Community (Chicago: 1'imcrtity ot Chicago
I’m*. 1948). pp. 101 102 Copyright. 1948. by the L’nlvenity of Chicago.

416

SWORDS INTO plows:

HARES

terminate act of establishment, they actually assumed a pre-
existing community. As Frederick Watkins has pointed out: Al-
though men like Locke might postulate a social contract as the
basis of community, they used it primarily as a device to deter-
mine the proper limits oE government and made little effort to
investigate the process whereby men actually acquire the capacity
for effective group action.” *

Opposed to this conception of sudden solidarity, achieved in
reaction to a vivid awareness of need and in response to a con-
vincing description of potentiality, is an organic, evolutionary
conception of the slow growth of the foundations of community
feeling, the development of social tissue, the enlargement of
psychic and moral horizons, and the emergence of common pat-
terns of feeling and action.

This brings us again to the recurrent problem of circularity,
this time involving the relationship between community and gov-
ernment. There is evidently some truth in both the propositions
that community creates government and that government creates
community. Yet, there remains a large area of uncertainty. What
is the minimum degree of community feeling that must be
achieved before the establishment of community institutions is
feasible and their successful operation is probable? How can it
be measured? How can it be created? Can world government be
relied upon to deposit its own foundations, or can an evolving
world community be expected to throw up its own appropriate
institutional superstructure in the fullness of time?

These questions add up to the ultimate mystery of the social
sciences, which any mere man ought to approach with agnostic
humility. It is, in fact, a "flower in the crannied wall” kind of
enigma; we do not even know how a nation comes into being,
much less possess the key to contriving a we-group encompassing
all of mankind. Kenneth Boulding has posed the problem, with*
out purporting to solve it:

The person 1 cannot get out of my mind these days is the young
man who dropped the first atomic bomb. ... If he had been
ordered to go and drop it on Milwaukee, he almost certainly would
have refused. . . . Because he was asked to drop it on Hiroshima.

* Th ' Tuition of the Wett (Cambridge: Harvard tlnlvfr’i'T Pfr “*

1WS). p W. *

world government and world order 410

oblivion the little men who grasped at straws, resorted to halfway
measures, tried to patch up the doomed edifice of international
relations, and evaded the clear call of destiny. This is the verdict
which internationalists are inclined to render, as they ponder the
truth that “Where there i* no vision, the people perish," and
upbraid themselves for being men of little faith.

This deference of internationalists is in large part the product
,of disappointment with the record so far achieved by interna-
tional organization. The League collapsed ignominiously, and the
United Nations has assuredly not given grounds for confidence
that it can save the world. International organization has proved
useful, but mere usefulness is not enough when the world stands
on the brink of irretrievable disaster. Moreover, internationalists
are not even equipped with an emotionally compelling and logi-
cally impregnable theory; not since the early days of the League
have substantial numbers of them believed that they possessed
the key that would infallibly open the doors to a brave new world.
They have had to say, “Maybe this will help," rather than "Here
is a certain solution to the world's problems," and to recommend
measures as worth trying rather than as worthy of confidence.

Their approaches to peace are vulnerable to a theoretical at-
tack, as Walter Schiffer has brilliantly demonstrated, which reveals
them as self-contradictory and illogical. Schiffer played a bit un-
fairly, by stuffing the creators and supporters of international
organization with ideological straw of his own gathering, and he
attributed to them a sublime confidence that their loose associa-
tions constitute the ideal approach to world order 10 which even
the most casual reader of the record ought to realize is not char-
acteristic of their tribe. He nevertheless scored heavily as he drove
home the point that it is a curious logic which acknowledges the
necessity for coercive government oser individual men but enter-
tains the idea that such human groups as states may contrive to
live in peaceful coexijtence without government, and the point
that international organization is either unworkable or unneces-
sary, since it sets out to solve problems resulting from the irre-
sponsible behavior of states by methods which will work only if
states behave responsibly, and relies for its success upon the exist-

* Tht Legal Community of Mmlini, J*p 285, ESS.

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

tion and responsibility than is possible within the flexible limits
of international organization. On the contrary, the weakness of
the organization derives largely from the fact that commitments
are unfulfilled, onerous responsibilities are evaded, and oppor-
tunities for collaboration are neglected. The evidence suggests
that the world organization is too primitive for the requirements
of mankind in this dangerous age, but too advanced for the pres-
ent political capacities of mankind. And all this indicates t e
pertinence of the question: is the world’s most urgent need t e
erection of a heavier and more imposing institutional superstruc-
ture, as the world federalist would have it, or the creation o
stronger foundations for such structural apparatus as already ex-
ists? There is basis for more than a suspicion that we now have,
in the United Nations system, at least as ambitious a structure as
the community can support.

The Question of Theoretical Validity

The world government movement may have slight prospects for
conquering the world, but it bids fair to conquer the inter-
nationalists. There is a strong tendency among supporters of in-
ternational organization to concede ultimate theoretical superior-
ity to world federalism. While maintaining the view that it cannot
now be accomplished, and that it is futile and perhaps even
unfortunate to press too hard for it at the present time, they arc
inclined to admit that world government is obviously the one and
only real and definitive solution to the problem of war, and that
the future, if there is one, belongs to the courageous prophets of
that doctrine. This statement of surrender is often tinged with

self-deprecation and grudging admiration for the victor; inter-
nationalists are disposed to be a bit apologetic for lacking the
moral courage to break away from the patterns of traditionalism,
to admit the bankruptcy of the old system, and to emulate the
adventurousness of world federalists in pursuing the vision of
what is eternally right. There is nothing very heroic or inspiring
about timid realism, as compared with passionate idealism; the
world will ultimately pay tribute to the visionaries who were not
afraid to be men ahead of their time, and consign to historical

WORLD GOVERNMENT AND WORLD ORbTK 421

peace, we would do well to perform a critical analysis of its sub-
stantive promise in addition to speculating about its prospects for
adoption.

In one sense, the thesis that world government would produce
world order is a truism. If government be defined as a set of effec-
tive means for preventing disorder, then this is dearly what the
world requires, and there is no occasion for further argument.
But definitive solutions achieved by definition are not very help-
ful. To say that we will have world order when we adopt ade-
quate methods for guaranteeing world order leaves us where we
started. Yet, this is the only sense in which the validity of the thesis
is obvious.

The essential starting point of an objective analysis of the
promise of world government is the recognition that government
has never served as a magic wand to banish problems of disorder
in any human society. It is sheer nonsense to assert, as does Emery
Reves, that law has always succeeded in producing peace, wher-
ever and whenever it has been tried, and that conflict between
social units has always been eliminated when their sovereignties
were merged in the creation of a superior governmental author-
ity . 13 As Quincy Wright has pointed out, deaths resultant from
military action were more numerous within the governed United
States than in the anarchical continent of Europe during the cen-
tury preceding the First World War. 1 * There is no gainsaying the
fact that “Civil war, revolution, mob violence are more frequent
manifestations of man's unruly and still savage will than are wars
between states.” ,s

The problem of civil war and revolution cannot be dismissed,
as Reves attempts to do, by asserting that it is the result of “badly
functioning government, of a collapse of legal order, of an incom-
pletely established system of law.” ** The admission that govern-
ment may fail is crucial. This admission defeats the thesis that
world government is the clear answer to the problem of peace,
sad aodatxs ie to a ^oggsawisw that cevzrkietajhm Avgpsaw

to the possibility that the creation of authoritative global institu-

"Op. fit, pp. 46, 75, 87.

M rro6l#t7ii of SMbi’iry and Progress in Inlemrtlinnal Relations, p. 160.

“Philip C. ]n>np, A Modem Lose of Salterns (New Yotk: Macmillan, 1019),
p. m

‘•Op. , P 77.

422 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

tions might be helpful. This is an eminently reasonable sugges-
tion, but it is a horse of a very different color from that which
world federalists customarily undertake to market.

The literature of world government is not all so dogmatic as
Reves* exposition, but it is thoroughly suffused with an idealiza-
tion of government per se which is tenable only if one ignores
the checkered history of ruling institutions and the unsatisfactory
performance of many contemporary governments as peace-keeping
agencies, and concentrates an admiring gaze upon the history of
a few Western nations, with their civil wars and revolutions ex-
purgated, which have achieved exceptional success in the art of
government. The most that can be said for government — and this
is saying a great deal — is that it sometimes contributes greatly to
the stability of a society and the security of its members, and that,
more rarely, it may even promote order without doing violence
to the values that many men place above order. Given the right
social conditions and the right kind of regime, government may
work reasonably well. This is a far cry from the proposition that
the establishment of a government is anything like a certain
means of solving the most critical problems that beset any human
group, including the largest possible human group. The world
might be better served by a frank exploration of the limits and
difficulties of government on a global scale than by a campaign
of persuasion which presents a glorified picture of government.

In more specific terms, world governmentalists offer federalism
as the brand of political unity which promises twentieth-century
man surcease from his gravest troubles. There is merit in this,
since the acceptance of federal linkage requires a less drastic re-
vision of political attitudes than acquiescence in the complete
fusion of states, and the maintenance of diversity within a pattern
of unity is a particularly significant value for the world commu-
nity.

Nevertheless, there is no justification for the uncritical view of
federalism which characterizes the movement for world govern-
ment. The analysis which is customarily presented is on about
the level of the schoolboy's understanding of the great American
experiment: the states gave up just enough authority to create a
strong nation and kept all the rest, 3nd this ingenious sjstem has
wor cd 'cry well indeed. The sober truth is that peoptes do not

WORLD GOVERNMENT AND WORLD ORDER 423

just federate and live happily ever after. American history has
not been so simple as all that; it includes much wangling over
the division of powers, crises of federal authority, a bloody civil
war and a bitter aftermath, the frustration of essential govern-
mental action by anachronistic and rigid jurisdictional bound-
aries, the gradual breaking down of many of the barriers posed by
federalism to effective government, and the resurgence of de-
mands for the raising anew of federal fences. Ultimately, the
schoolboy is right: American federalism has, on the whole, worked
very well, although there is room for argument as to whether the
United States has become a great nation because of or in spite
of its federal system, and whether its deviation from or its respect
for the pattern prescribed by the Founding Fathers has contrib-
uted most notably to its successful development.

The point is that federalism is an extremely complicated form
of government which makes extraordinary demands upon the po-
litical wisdom and moderation of its participants. Many peoples
have no experience in operating a complex federal system, some
others have political traditions opposed to the kind of legalistic
logic-chopping and governmental pulling and hauling which such
a system involves, and few peoples have been able to manage
federalism with great success. It requires great audacity to suggest
that the lumping together of all these peoples would produce a
body politic capable of keeping a global federal system in smooth
operation. Federalism has great merits, but the question of its
appropriateness as the future pattern of organization for the world
is one to be determined by serious study of its problems and
implications, not one to be settled by assumption and assertion.

The proponents of world federation make much of the claim
that only a “limited” world government is necessary. It may be
that they have chosen federalism not so much because they have
watched its operation in national situations and concluded that
it can be successfully transplanted to the global field, as because
the term ” federalism” serves to symbolize the limited price
which they ask the world to pay for peace. Perhaps the inter-
nationalist need not have such a sharp sense of moral inferiority
after all; as prophets, his federalist brethren have the courage t0
demand sweeping change in the global system, but as salesmen
they have the prudence to emphasize the limited character of tl| f

SWORDS INTO PLOW'S!

424

change. Government is the big, brave word; federalism is the
little, cautious word. In a book advocating world federation,
Vernon Nash busied himself so with reassuring timorous souls
that he fell into the trap of asserting that the central regime
would have little intimate impact upon either national govern-
ments or private citizens, 11 thus converting his proposal into a
beguiling picture of happy anarchy rather than a rigorous de-
mand for creation of governmental institutions adequate to cope
with global disorder.

In fact, the project of endowing a world federation with powers
adequate to prevent war may be big enough to render its descrip-
tion as a program of "limited world government” a trifle incon-
gruous. It is usually taken to involve the concentration of author-
ity to enforce disarmament, require peaceful settlement of dis-
putes, and suppress violence, with a few ancillary powers. But a
sophisticated analysis of the problem of war may reveal that much
more than the capacity to control the armaments situation is es-
sential. The American industrial plant, for instance, may be as
frightening to a potential enemy as the standing army of the
USSR, and the problem of peaceful change may loom as large in
the causative picture of war as the problem of uncontrolled na-
tional navies. How limited a world government can be if it i*
given unlimited competence to do what is necessary to remove
the threat of war is a matter of conjecture. How successful it can
be in fulfilling the expectations cultivated by its proponents if
it is not granted such broad competence is equally uncertain.

Aside from the factor of the objective requirements for creating
a peaceful world society, the factor of political pressures which
cannot be wholly anticipated enters into the determination of the
limits of federal authority in a hypothetical world government.
When the world federalist tells the wary nationalist that his proj-
ect is safe, because it involves the delegation of clearly defined
powers to a global regime and the careful reservation of residual
powers to the national state, he is talking through his hat. What-
ever American experience proves about federalism, it emphati-
cally does not prove that federalism provides a neat, clean line
of division between jurisdictional areas, a line which stays put
except when it is shifted by constitutional amendment, and which

" The World Must Be Governed (New York- Harper. lW). pp 71-72.

WORLD GOVERNMENT AND WORLD ORDER 425

leaves federal and state governments with nothing to do except
to tend to their own business. A federal system may be torn apart
by centrifugal political forces, or it may be subjected to centrip-
etal pressures which gradually break down the federalists qual-
ifications of its unity; its most unlikely prospect is that of per-
petuating a static equilibrium between the -whole and the parts.
A federal formula for the distribution of powers and functions is
merely a starting point It is quite possibly true that the gradual
transformation of a federal into a unitary system is the only
course of development compatible with its survival; in this case,
federalism is either an abortive attempt at unity, doomed to end
in dissolution, or an interim step toward centralization, destined
to be transcended.

No one can predict with absolute certainty the pattern of evo-
lution which would characterize a global federation. What is cer-
tain is that changes would take place and that they would not be
determined by the preferences of those who had agitated for es-
tablishment of the federation. Campaign promises are difficult to
keep even when one is elected to a position of authority; they are
impossible to keep when one’s victory consists in the adoption of
a constitution and the creation of political institutions. All this
does not prove that the world should reject federalism, but it
does suggest that the experiment should not be launched in the
expectation that any given federal arrangement will prove to be
definitive.

A world federation would pose particularly difficult problems
for existing federal states. A two-level system, involving the work-
ing division of governmental powers and functions between na-
tional and state regimes, is complex enough; the addition of a
third level would compound the difficulties of adjustment. It is
already apparent that participation in international organization
by the United States creates significant problems for the American
federal system, and there is every reason to believe that these
problems would be increased, not eliminated, by American mem-
bership in a world federation. What would be the pattern of
relationships among a World Federal Government, the United
States Government, and the Government of Mississippi or Texas?
How effectively could government function if its powers and
jurisdiction were divided among three units, each jealously com-

426 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

peting for its share of sovereignty? Would American federalism
have to be abandoned, or would it break down completely, in
such a situation? The irony is that the consideration oE such
questions as these has been left largely to the proponents of the
Bricker Amendment, whose bias runs toward insulating the
United States from the impact of external involvements, so as to
facilitate a reversal of centralizing trends in the American fed-
eral system. What needs to be established is the fact that world
federalism is a set of problems to be studied, not simply a cause
to be preached. These problems are not necessarily insoluble, but
they will not be solved by glib assurances that federalism offers a
neat formula for escaping the perils of global anarchy.

The case for world federation appears most plausible when one
sets aside all the troublesome problems of federalism and simply
fixes attention on the telling contrast between the situation of the
nations, floundering desperately to keep their heads above water
as they cling to the primitive raft called the United Nations, and
that of the forty-eight American states, blithely sailing onward in
the pToud and sturdy ship, the federal union of the United States.
Is it not clear that federation is superior to loose association, and
that the United Nations will become worthy of confidence only
as, and in so far as, it models itself after the United States? The
answer is not so simply affirmative as it might at first appear.

In some respects at least, the organizational form of the United
Nations is more appropriate for the facilitation of coordinate
relations among separate political entities than is the federal sys-
tem of the United States. For all its merits, the American system
makes only the scantiest provision for the ordering of relation-
ships among its constituent states and between them and the cen-
tral government. There is no officially established means for the
regular consultation of states with each other or with the federal
superior. The United Nations is far better equipped to promote
the standardization of such matters as road signs or the discussion
of general policy questions between France and Italy than the
United States is in regard to Ohio and Pennsylvania. Within lim-
its, Washington can impose common standards and policies upon
the states, but there remain significant areas of public concern
which are less subject to systematic coordination in the United

World government and world order 427

States than in the United Nations. Considerable progress has
recently been made toward filling this gap in die American sys-
tem, particularly through the development of the extra-constitu-
tional Council o£ State Governments and the utilization of the
device of interstate agreements.*® But the Council is vastly in-
ferior to the United Nations as a coordinating center — for in-
stance, its “General Assembly," the Conference of Governors,
functions under the rule that no resolution can be passed except
by a unanimous vote — and interstate agreements have by no
means achieved functional significance comparable to that of
treaties in the international sphere. When the Commission on
Intergovernmental Relations recommended in 1955 that formal
machinery should be established for the systematic exchange of
information between governmental units and the consideration
of problems of interlevel relationships, 1 * it was in effect suggest-
ing that the United States might profitably emulate the United
Nations.

In short, there is significant evidence that the ordering of rela-
tionships in a world which is administratively and politically
pluralistic is not to be accomplished by the slavish copying of
American or any other federal institutions. The theory and prac-
tice of federalism doubtless have much to contribute to an ideal
pattern of world institutions, but it is altogether possible that the
devices which international organization has evolved for dealing
with world problems will prove to be at least equally effectual.
It is far from clear that the international “adoption of federal-
ism” is the final answer.

The point remains that the federated states of the American
union enjoy an infinitely more advantageous interrelationship
than the unfederated states which constitute the world commu-
nity. How can any objection be regarded as valid in the face of
the obvious desirability of creating international relationships
analogous to the interstate relationships of the United States? One
rhetorical question deserves another: how can any man presume
to say that world government would produce beneficent effects

“Set Leonard D White. The States and the Natron (Baton Rouge: Louisiana
State University Press. 1953)

'•See the Commission’s Report to the President for Transmittal to the Coner r „
(June 1955). pp. 6t. 79. 86 89. 6

SWORDS INTO PLOWSH.

423

upon world society comparable to the effects produced upon
American society by our central government?

The case for world government rests heavily upon elaborate
assurances as to the nature of the proposed regime. Many blue-
printers experience no difficulty in predicting offhand what kind
of government the world will get if it makes the plunge; it will
be, for instance, a democratic regime, dealing fairly and im-
partially with all states, respecting its constitutional limitations,
and sticking closely to its business of keeping the world safe from
war. Some even find it possible to explain in considerable detail
the policy which it will pursue without describing the basic
constitutional structure — representation, voting arrangements, ex-
ecutive establishment, etc. — which they assume it will have. There
seems to be full agreement that it will be a “good" government.

The nature of a governmental system does not depend pri-
marily upon the intentions of its advocates or of its actual found-
ers, or even upon the constitutional document which gives it
birth, but upon the nature of the community upon which it rests.
The exercise of the basic peace-keeping function is particularly
conditioned by the essential attributes of the community.

The international community is, and seems likely for the in-
definite future to be, characterized by a very precarious unity, a
minimal consensus, sharp conflicts, and profound disharmonies.
Given this circumstance, it appears that the project of establish-
ing a world government capable of exercising forcible restraint
over any and all potential violators of the peace would entail
the concentration of really formidable power in the central agen-
cies of the community. In Reinhold Niebuhr's words, “the less
a community is held together by cohesive forces in the texture
of its life the more it must be held together by power.” 20

Hobbes was right; when a community is so poorly developed
that its pregovernmental condition is one of intolerable warfare,
and its urge to establish government rests on no other foundation
than a desperate desire to escape the perils of anarchy, the only
theoretically adequate government is a Leviathan, an omnipotent
dictatorship. Locke, too, was right; when a community is held
together by strong bonds of agreement concerning what is right

*>7Vi« Children of Light and the Children of Darkness (New York: Scribner’s.
1930). p 161

WORLD GOVERNMENT AND WORLD ORDER

429

and just, and its common life is reasonably satisfactory, a limited
and mild kind of government, based mainly upon consent, may
suffice to supply its needs. World govemmentalists describe the
world’s situation in Hobbesian terms, with a view to emphasizing
the urgent need for a global social contract, but they depict the
resultant government in Lockian terms, with a view to making
the social contract palatable. It would be better to recognize that
in so far as this is a Hobbesian world, it is likely to require a

Hobbesian government.

The problem of power looms large with respect to any gov-
ernmental system adequate to cope with the elements of disorder
and discord in the international community. If a global regime is
to have sufficient power to fulfill its task, questions of profound
gravity arise: who will exercise and control the force of the com-
munity, in accordance with what conception of justice, within
what constitutional limits, with what guarantees that the limits
will be observed? These are not questions that can be readily
answered, but they are crucial — for the threat of global tyranny
lurks in unsatisfactory answers. In terms of Western liberalism,
the problem is not to get just any kind of world government—
Hitler and Stalin were only the most recent of a long senes of
leaders who would have been glad to provide that— but to get a
system of world order which is compatible with the political
ideals of the democratic heritage. Perhaps this is wrong. It is con
ceivable that Hobbes' Leviathan is preferable m the atomic age
to a Hobbesian state of nature, but such a choice ought to be
made advisedly, if at all. The problem of controlling a world
government powerful enough to control the situation in an essen-
tially unintegrated world community is not one to be taken

11 The point of all this 1, .ha. .he kind of world we have no. .he
kind oV blueprint, world governmental!,* draw up. U .he decii.ve

get ,f we got one, an* ' h ' '”? n J„nVe,.ern liberal civilization
face in trying to preserve th. r vab ..« ■ ’ rf mr This analysi ,

svhile undertaking to c im .‘ .... £ wor id government, but it

doe, no. disprove the in terms of it,

radicate, the need th „ a „„ n ,i„g that imtitmio,,.

relationship to commumt). rat

430 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

making can safely be divorced from analysis of the community
within which institutions have to operate.

One of tlic most persistent themes in the literature of world
government is the concept that world law' must be directly ap-
plicable to and enforceable upon individuals. Various reasons
may be suggested for the assignment of such significance to this
idea, including bias against the old devil, the sovereign state, be-
lief that such a concept is inherent in the idea of government, and
acceptance of the Hamiltonian thesis that states are intrinsically
uncoercible.* 1 There is strong reason to suspect that this theme
represents primarily an urge to evade the harsh reality that the
effective war-making entities of the world arc powerful national
states and that those arc the entities which must be controlled if
peace is to reign. It would be comforting if the central problem
of international relations could be reduced to the task of restrain-
ing mere individuals rather than confronting the armed might
of such a collectivity as the Soviet Union, but the grim fact »
that such collective units have a meaningful existence and are
not susceptible of being dissolved into insignificance by (he touch
of a magic wand and the utterance of the formula, "Hencefor-
ward, peace will be assured by the application of world law to
individuals." In this regard, the kudos for moral courage go to
the internationalists, who, in contrast to world governmentalists,
have unflinchingly accepted the necessity that slates be brought
under control. They have not achieved the goal, but neither have
they dodged the issue.

This is not to deny the enormous long-range importance of de-
veloping close and direct relationships between international
institutions and human persons; it is essential that individuals
be restrained, protected, served, and converted into loyal and re-
sponsible citizens of the republic of mankind.* 1 But for the pur-
pose of preventing war. world institutions— be they organiza-
tional or governmental in nature— have to deal with the problem
presented by the reality of states, and the theorist who is suffi-
ciently aware of that reality to propose a federal system under

"See Inis L. Claude, Jr,, “Individuals and World Law," Harvard Studies in
International Affairs, June 1952, pp. 10 12.

"Ibid, pp. 15 20.

431

WORLD GOVERNMENT AND WORLD ORDER

which the identity and to a large extent the competence o£ states
would be preserved ought to be the first to recognize this neces-

Ultimately, the world federalist does not succeed even in con-
vincing himself that the tough job of controlling states can be
exchanged for the presumably easy task of regulating individual
behavior; he is forced to grapple with the problem of upholding
world authority against rebellious states and to contemplate fed-
eral resort to war against such entities rather than mere arrest
and imprisonment of perverse individuals. Moreover, he is com-
pelled to acknowledge, implicitly at least, that the doctrine of
individual subjection to world law does not emancipate a hypo-
thetical world government from dependence upon the coopera-
tion of states for the success of its operations. The most impressive
scheme for world federation yet developed, that fashioned by
Grenville Clark and Louis Sohn, envisages individual citizenship
of the global state but is permeated by the assumption that na-
tional states will collaborate or can be required to collaborate in
making the federal system work; to cite only two instances, the
authors of the plan propose that "each nation shall employ its
own tax machinery and personnel for the collection of the United
Nations taxes,” and recognize that "The success of this whole sys-
tem of enforcement of United Nations laws against individuals
would depend, of course, to a large extent, on harmonious co-
operation of the authorities of the member Nation in w ic t e

offender resides.” 23 , , ,, ,

However deeply one might with that the world could be gov-
erned by policemen wielding night sticks, the rea ifes are sue
that a valid concept of world government mutt define the prob-
lem as it has been defined by internattonal otganm h
to cope with a multiplicity of national states. Otmethu ,sa
cepted. it becomes evident that there » govm , me „t,
supplantation of international organi y society must

but that proposed method, of * {*. blsis o[ their being

he judged on their merits, rather tna (

labeled “organizational” or governmenta . world eov-

Many of tie difficulties which have been suggested for g

* Clark and Sohn, op. «»■. PP *• S7,

432 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

eminent have been removed by its proponents by the convenient
device of assuming them into oblivion. Thus, there is no serious
problem of power in a global system because states will disarm
and relieve the central regime of the necessity of maintaining
huge forces which might pose the threat of world tyranny. Clark
and Sohn explicitly assume a preliminary general settlement of
the conflict between East and West and agreement to a thorough-
going disarmament program, 8 * and implicitly rely upon the prob-
ability that states could be induced, largely without coercion, to
fulfill their obligations for making the federal system function
satisfactorily.

This is all very well, but at this point it becomes clear that
SchifFer could just as properly have turned his devastating attack
upon the logic of world government as upon that of international
organization. Does world government, any less than international
organization, base its prospects for success upon the prior solution
of problems which it is supposed to solve? Is the former less guilty
than the latter of assuming the existence of conditions which, if
they existed, would make it unnecessary, and which, if they did
not exist, would make it unworkable? If, indeed, we can safely
assume the end of the cold war, the voluntary elimination of
major armaments, and the dependable performance of significant
international responsibilities by states, there is every prospect that
the United Nations will work quite well. If we cannot make these
assumptions, world government and international organization
alike fail to measure up to the ideal standards of a mechanism
for giving mankind the assurance of a just and lasting peace.

The rejection of the thesis that world government is a theoret-
ically ideal or a practically attainable approach to peace does not
imply either a smug assurance that the world does not need to be
governed or a pessimistic conviction that the world cannot be
raised above the level of anarchy. The concluding chapter will
deal with the progress and prospects of efforts to make world order
a dependable reality.

m Ibid, pp. 5, 10.

WORLD COVUNMZNI AND WORLD ORDER

433

SUGGESTED READINGS

Clark, Grenville, A Plan for Peace, New York: Harper, 1950.

Clark, Grenville, and Sobn, Louis B„ World Peace Through World
Law, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958.

Mangone, Gerard J., The Idea and Practice of World Government,
New York: Columbia University Press, 3951.

Meyer, Cord, Peace or Anarchy, Boston: Little, Brown, 1947.
Schuman, Frederick L., The Commonwealth of Man, New York:
Knopf, 1952.

Wheare, K, C., Federal Government, New York: Oxford University
Press, 3947.

White, E. B., The Wild Flag, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, n.d.

International Organization
and World Order

World federalists and champions of international organization
can agree that the world needs techniques and institutions capable
of preventing war and mobilizing human and material resources
in a vast effort to create a good society which encompasses the
whole earth. The fundamental difference between them is that
the former think in terms of governmental Institutions as the in-
dispensable means for the realization of these purposes, whereas
the latter emphasize the ideal of obtaining governmental results
by whatever methods may be tried and found useful. To say that
the world needs to be governed is not the same as saying that a
world government must be erected.

The world requires methods and agencies adequate for per-
forming reasonably well on a global scale the functions which
governments have undertaken to perform and have occasionally
managed to perform with great success in independent states; yet
world government is not the only conceivable or necessarily the
best possible means for meeting that requirement. To put it
differently, the benefits which governments ideally and sometimes
actually confer upon the societies in which they operate are
desperately needed by the global society, but it is not certain that
those advantages are most likely to be provided by institutions
patterned after or closely analogous to the so-called "govern-
434

RDER 435

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION AND WORLD O

mental” institutions of states. The instrumentalities appropriate
to the solution of the world’s problems may or may not constitute
a system which looks like government, sounds like government, or
acts like government. The test is functional performance, not in-
stitutional resemblance.

The Progress of International Organization

In functional terms, the process of international organization
has brought greater progress toward a governed world than has
been generally recognized, and certainly more than is acknowl-
edged by those who adhere to the doctrinaire view that govern-
ment and anarchy are the two halves of an absolute either-or
formula.

The last century, and particularly the last generation, has been
an era of continuous development of patterns and techniques for
managing the business of the international community. The old
story of the sociological lag emphasizes the important truth that
mankind has far to go, but it tends to obscure the fact that we are
living in a period of adventurous experiment and flourishing in-
ventiveness in the field of international relations. The creation of
such institutional innovations as the general interna, onal organ-
iration, the international secretariat, the me. national con- ere ince
r i ft,/* international field commission tor

of the parliamentary W*. th< do „ al technka l as .
investigation and supervision, the . , . NATO

sistance tnission, the £* ll^an

type, and the supranational fun 1 » ^ Moreover , fruit-

Plan type testifies to in ly supplemented by more

ful improvisation is being mcr ^ n0[ exd „ s!vely

syitematic activities. The invent! £ intsm ational com-

a phenomenon of the ^ anaIytkal tool

munny is now equipped as nev , olk for designing and
professional staff, and orgamtational framewo

instituting new instruments to meet ‘ include notable

The achievements of intemauon^orgamra.^ ^
gains in the field of noncoera s Sstancial influence and

of the United Nations system ior ; states through the

and adviw:

exploitation of a variety

436 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

inquiry, debate, and criticism of both public and private varieties;
examination of reports and conduct of inspections; granting and
withdrawal of subsidies and other forms of assistance; and recom-
mendation followed by evaluation of response to this sort of
pressure and possibly by insistent reiteration.

Additionally, limited progress has been made in the develop-
ment of techniques of mandatory enactment and coercive enforce-
ment. Failure to realize the ideal potentialities of collective secu-
rity does not imply the utter sterility of the effort to create a
multilateral enforcement system. The general acceptance in 1945
of a paper scheme whereby the Security Council might function
as an authoritative agency of the international community, for
acting against flagrant violations of its standards by all except the
veto-protected great powers, in itself marked a significant advance.
The critical deficiencies of this scheme, both in theory and in
practice, overshadow but do not obliterate the fact that a primitive
enforcement mechanism has come into being. The collapse of the
Security Council scheme has been a little less than total; the com-
pensatory development of the General Assembly and the supple-
mentary construction of extra-United Nations devices for multi-
lateral action have provided less than adequate or ideal but more
than negligible support for the project of diminishing the prob-
ability that the arbitrary use of force will evoke no organized re-
sistance from the community of states.

Future historians may find more significance in the fact that
the League tried than that it failed to organize sufficiently vigor-
ous measures to stop Italian aggression in Ethiopia, in the fact
that the United Nations was able to adopt a posture stern enough
to bring the Palestinian situation under control than that it was
unable to guarantee the security of all troubled areas, and in the
fact that the United Nations ventured to organize military and
economic sanctions against Communist intrusions into South
Korea than that it offered no effective means of coping with the
broader dangers of Soviet aggressiveness in the cold war era.

The tentative opening up of limited possibilities of collective
coercion under the auspices of international organization does
not significantly offset the conclusion that the primary resources
for regulation of state behavior which have been discovered by
the League and the United Nations fall into the category of

438

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

intelligent understanding that a decent political order in the na-
tion must rest upon processes of inducement and adjustment
rather than upon sheer force, seem to picture government solely
in terms of a policeman beating criminals into submission when
they shift their attention to the international scene. People are
being governed at other times than when they cower before a
policeman or languish in prison cells. Nations are being governed
at other times than when they are being prohibited, restrained,
and compelled.

The obvious answer is that noncoercive techniques of socia
regulation are not enough, either within a nation or among the
nations; a system of international organization which must rely
almost wholly upon an ability to induce compliance, unsupported
by a reserve capacity to command and compel obedience, ts not
simply an incompletely equipped agency of world order but a
fatally defective one.

This observation applies equally to a system which possesses
the power to enforce without the capacity to persuade. The expe-
rience of governments makes it dear that recognition of the
indispensability of force must be qualified by awareness both of
its inherent inadequacy and of its limited attainability. Power is
not enough, and there cannot in fact be enough power to guar-
antee against breaches of the peace. The project of endowing a
world government with sufficient power to prevent disorder is not
only dangerous, but it is ultimately infeasible. Only in a thor-
oughly atomistic society is there a real possibility that threats to
order can be pm down by coercion without results which amount
to a disruption of social order. Such societies exist only in the
minds of theorists and in the objectives of totalitarian dictators.
In the real world, national societies are characterized by a plural-
ism which can never be entirely ground down even by the most
determined dictator, and the international society exhibits a
pluralistic nature which is so striking that virtually all world
governmental ists defer to it by advancing proposals for global
federation rather than unitary government. To admit this w ,n
fact to concede that governmental coercion cannot keep the civil
peace; it can at best win the civil war.

The American system of government, so often cited as evidence
of the desirability of global federalism, serves as an instructive

140

RES

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHA

raining racial segregation in the schools. And if, in some dire
emergency, it does resort to coercion against a major segment o
the national population or a regional bloc of states, this ml
symbolize not the majestic operation of the governmental prin-
ciple in preserving social order, but the tragic failure of govern
ment to prevent the disruption of social order; the Federa
Government will not be presiding over the peace, but conducting
war. .

It is striking how much can and must — even in a system o
federal government — -be done without the pressure of legal
dictate and coercive threat. There are vital differences between
the United States and the United Nations, but the contrast is not
meaningfully stated by saying that the federation can rule by hold-
ing the threat of force over the major groups constituting the
society which it governs, while the association is dependent upon
the effectiveness of noncoercive methods in dealing with analogous
entities within its domain. If a bitter conflict should arise between
the groups of states east and west of the Mississippi River, the
United States Government would be in very much the same posi-
tion as the United Nations in the period of cold war, and its
response to such a situation would be essentially the same; it
would rely upon political methods for resolving the issues, just as
the United Nations does, and if these methods failed, American
society would dissolve into war, just as might happen in the case
of global society. The evidence of American federalism does not
support the thesis that the critical deficiency of the United Na-
tions is its lack of power to coerce such states as the Soviet Union
and that its transformation into a federation would, by remedying
that lack, emancipate it from dependence upon methods of persua-
sion, discussion, and conciliation for maintaining world order. In
telying upon sudi methods, the United Nations, which is not a
government, is behaving as a government would have to behave
in analogous circumstances.

This argument is only partially met by the thesis that it «
coercion, but coercion applied against individuals rather than
collective entities, which serves federal regimes as the ultimate
safeguard of the peace. According to this view, the key to the
transcendence of international anarchy is the shift from organist*

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION AND WORLD ORDER 44!

tional reliance upon influencing states, to governmental depend-
ence upon enforcing the law against individuals.

American experience lends only limited credibility to this view.
It is true that Washington customarily checks collective entities —
when they are willing to be checked — by holding their leaders
legally responsible; but when a significant element of society
exhibits a solidarity of disaffection, die government undertakes to
negotiate with its leaders, not to hold the law over their heads,
and to placate the group, not to treat it as a mass of individual
law-breakers. No reasonable man would contend that the fiasco of
the Eighteenth Amendment proved the capacity of government
to uphold the law by applying it on an individual basis to a mass
of determined violators, and it is doubtful that federal enforce-
ment of desegregation in Southern schools against the wishes of
states is rendered feasible by the fact that Washington has the
theoretical capacity to imprison all state governors, legislators, and
local school officials who defy its will. Governmental authority
am! power to deal with individuals it important, but it does not
suffice to cope with either disobedience by an amorphous mass or
resistance by an organized major segment of society in the United
States.

442

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

relations between the massive community and the lonely in-
dividual does not realistically exist. .

In the final analysis, the decisive difference between the United
States and the United Nations as systems of order is to be dis-
covered in the fact that the United States is, and the United Na-
tions is not, a society in which the significance of constituent
groups has been so reduced that they are unlikely to press their
claims to the point of disrupting the social fabric. The difference
lies in the nature of the communities. The United States enjoys
a degree of stability far superior to that of the international com-
munity because its states, regions, interest groups, and other
component parts require neither the threat nor the use of federa
force to restrain them from launching civil war or revolution,
they are amenable to the political settlement of most of the issues
which affect them, and there is general agreement within the
community that the tough residue of disputed issues will not be
forced to a showdown. In contrast, the international community
is composed of states which have not, to such a degree, lost the
disposition to challenge the order of the community, by force if
necessary. Something has happened to Texas that has not hap-
pened to the Soviet Union. It is not so much that Texas, unlike
the Soviet Union, has been overshadowed by a coercive institu-
tional superstructure, but that Texas, unlike the Soviet Union,
has been incorporated in the consensual foundations of a laTger
community.

If this analysis is correct, then the key to a well governed world
is not the endowment of the United Nations with plenary coercive
capacity but the reproduction on a global scale of the conditions
which have made the pluralistic society of the United States a
community in which group conflicts do not normally pose the
threat of violent upheavals. The difficulty is that no one can quite
say how the United States got that way, but two major considera-
tions may be suggested. One is that the dividing lines of American
society have become so numerous and intertangled, the pluralism
has become so complex, that no clean-cut divisions of loyalty and
interest can be found; the community has not been thoroughly
unified, but its divisions have been confused by a process ol
multiplication. Thus, Texas cannot pose the threat of civil war
because there is no one who is wholly a Texan, and labor unions

442 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

relations between the massive community and the lonely in-
dividual does not realistically exist.

In the final analysis, the decisive difference between the United
States and the United Nations as systems of order is to be dis-
covered in the fact that the United States is, and the United Na-
tions is not, a society in which the significance of constituent
groups has been so reduced that they are unlikely to press their
claims to the point of disrupting the social fabric. The difference
lies in the nature of the communities. The United States enjoys
a degree of stability far superior to that of the international com-
munity because its states, regions, interest groups, and oilier
component parts require neither the threat nor the use of federal
force to restrain them from launching civil war or revolution;
they are amenable to the political settlement of most of the issues
which affect them, and there is general agreement within the
community that the tough residue of disputed issues will not be
forced to a showdown. In contrast, the international community
is composed of states which have not, to such a degree, lost the
disposition to challenge the order of the community, by force if
necessary. Something has happened to Texas that has not hap-
pened to the Soviet Union. It is not so much that Texas, unlike
the Soviet Union, has been overshadowed by a coercive institu-
tional superstructure, but that Texas, unlike the Soviet Union,
has been incorporated in the consensual foundations of a larger
community.

If this analysis is correct, then the key to a well governed world
is not the endowment of the United Nations with plenary coercive
capacity but the reproduction on a global scale of the conditions
which have made the pluralistic society of the United States a
community in which group conflicts do not normally pose the
threat of violent upheavals. The difficulty is that no one can quite
say how the United States got that way, but two major considera-
tions may be suggested. One is that the dividing lines of American
society have become so numerous and intertangled, the pluralism
has become so complex, that no clean-cut divisions of loyalty and
interest can be found; the community has not been thoroughly
unified, but its divisions have been confused by a process of
multiplication. Thus, Texas cannot pose the threat of civil war
because there is no one who is wholly a Texan, and labor unions

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION AND WORLD ORDER 445

national heads together, but they do correspond closely to the
actual approach to the problem of maintaining order in a plural-
istic society which the Federal Government of the United States
has found essential. It is less significant that international organ-
ization is not a federal world government than that it is engaged
in the effort to do the sort of thing that must be done, by the sort
of method that can be used, to produce the sort of community
that can, with proper management, sustain a peaceful existence.
In this sense, the experiment of governing the world is now in
operation, and the task of making the world governable is already
being undertaken.

International organization has not been unaffected by the urge
to solve the problem of world order by developing potentialities
of coercion; the recurrent efforts of statesmen to create an ef-
fective system of collective security testify to this point. However,
even this project is suffused with the spirit of voluntary coopera-
tion rather than that of governmental compulsion, for collective
security involves the collaboration of independent states in joint
enforcement action, not the brandishing of sovereign power by a
central regime. In the final analysis, international organization is
primarily dedicated to the proposition that the nature of interna-
tional society makes the preservation of peace dependent upon
the stimulation of voluntary cooperation, the mobilization of
moral restraint, the enlightenment of national self-interest, and
the development of mutual understanding. The most urgent
question of our time is not how to escape from the necessity of
relying upon such methods as these, but how to make that neces-
sity more tolerable. It is doubtful that the cause of world order is
better served by agitated obsession with the danger that the
essential consent of states to accept restraint and responsibility
may not be forthcoming, than by constructive devotion to the
task of developing more effective means for inducing that consent.

The Prospects of Internationa] Organization

To say that international organization does not represent a
fundamentally mistaken approach to the problem of ssorld order
is not to assert that it is destined to succeed. The tough reality of

444

SWORDS INTO FLO

HARES

precisely the variety of tools for doing useful work in the world
which it has been busily shaping. In these terms, a world which
has recently devoted itself to creating and setting into operation
an unprecedentedly elaborate system of international service
agencies is not guilty of fatuous unconcern with the problem of
escaping anarchy. It is conceivable that the development of a
public service corps is a more essential contribution to the cre-
ation of a community fit for law and order than the establishment
of a police force.

In short, the conception of government as an agency which
maintains order simply by commanding and compelling, pro-
hibiting and punishing, has little relevance to a pluralistic na-
tional society and still less to a global society which is chiefly
characterized by the depth of its divisions, the simplicity of its
pluralistic pattern, and the underdevelopment of its capacity to
superimpose a universal allegiance upon national loyalties. Given
this kind of international community, the realization of the theo-
retical ideal of subjecting the world to unchallengeable authority
would require the creation of an inordinately powerful world
government; the fulfillment of the practical task of maintaining
order in such a world involves the assiduous application of meth-
ods of compromise and adjustment. Here is a real paradox: the
international community is so deficient in consensual foundations
that it must theoretically be held together more by force than by
consent, but it is marked by such decentralization of the resources
of political and physical power that it must in practice be managed
by agencies, whether they be called instruments of international
organization or of world federation, which operate more by
persuasion than by coercion. In the world as it is, there is no real
alternative to efforts to achieve regulation of state behavior by
noncoercive methods, and no more appropriate collective task
than the provision of international services which may ultimately
prove conducive to the breaking down of those features of the
community structure which make reliance upon consent rather
than coercion at once so necessary and so precarious. The reg-
ulatory. methods and functional emphases of international or-
ganization may not conform to the image of government con-
cocted by those who are impatient to abolish the problem of war
by creating an entity which can, by definition, knock any and all

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION AND WORLD ORDER 447
The deficiencies of the United Nations indicate a greater need for
review and revision of national policies than of the Charter itself.

The most casual observer of the international scene can see
that the problem of world order has not been solved. The most
careful student of international organization can see that no
world-saving miracles have been wrought, no infallible formula
for solution of fundamental problems has been drafted, and no
glorious certainty of a brave new world has been projected before
the troubled eyes of modern man. But there is more to be seen
than continued anarchy, unsolved problems, unresolved conflicts,
and unparalleled dangers of chaos and destruction. Fallibility is
not the same as futility; limited achievement is not the same as
unlimited failure; danger « not the same as doom.

The development of international organization represents both
a realistic response to the requirements of doing national business
in an increasingly complex international setting and an idealistic
attempt to modify the operation of the multistate system so as to
make civilized living possible in an increasingly interdependent
world. For better or for worse, the world has abjured the
Hobbesian solution of throwing up hastily contrived institutional
structures resting upon nothing more substantial than desperate
fear of mutual destruction, adopting instead the Ciceronian ideal
of establishing institutions of common life upon the limited but
solid foundations of consensus juris and utilitatis communione .
The builders of international organization have on occasion over-
estimated the extent of international agreement upon fundamen-
tal issues of right and justice and international preparedness to
sustain joint approaches to mutual advantage, but they have not
suliordinatcd considerations of foundational adequacy to con-
ceptions of architectural grandeur.

The proliferation of agencies in the United Nations system,
the simultaneous exploration of approaches to peace ranging
from collective security to technical assistance and from regula-
tion of civil aviation to dissemination of artistic masterpieces, is
esidcncc not merely of a weakness for indiscriminate experimenta-
tion but also of a growing recognition of the multifaceted char-
acter of the problem of world order and of the essential inter*
connectedness of (he parts of its solution. The world is truly be-

446

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

the national divisions of world society makes the quest for agreed
solutions oE international problems a necessary enterprise, but the
conflicting interests and purposes of national entities also make
that quest a difficult one. Mankind is blessed by no cosmic guar-
antee that all its problems are soluble and all its dangers are
avoidable.

The danger of imminent conflict between states possessing vast
power is the overwhelming reality of our time. Only the coldest of
comfort is to be derived from the observation that the existence
of this danger is attributable to the nature of the international
community rather than to the nature of the international archi-
tecture which was contrived in 1945. In this situation, it is all too
clear that the United Nations can offer no guarantee of peace
and security; at best, it can facilitate the balancing of power
against power, and mobilize the resources of political adjustment.
In the long run, international organization may transform the
working of the multistate system. In the short run, it is inevitably
more affected by the circumstances of international relations
than effective in altering those circumstances. # .

There can be no guarantee that international machinery will in
fact be utilized for the high purposes to which it may be formally
dedicated. The establishment of an international organization
does not involve the creation of an autonomous will, inexorably
set upon the pursuit of the ideal of peace in a prescribed manner.
Rather, it involves the creation of a mechanism to be placed at
the disposal of states, which may use it For whatever purposes thetr
agreements or their disagreements dictate. In practice, interna-
tional organization may serve as the institutional framework for
the joint exploration of approaches to peace, but it is also capable
of serving as an arena for the conduct of international political
warfare, or as an instrument for the advancement of the political
objectives of a particular state or gToup of states.

International organization does not emancipate the world from
dependence upon the quality of its statesmanship. Structural
apparatus cannot generate its own supply of political decency, dis-
cretion, wisdom, and moderation. In the final analysis, both the
possibilities and the limitations of international organization are
set by political forces operative tvithin and among member states.

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION AND WORLD ORDER 44(1

It is perhaps necessary to stress again the distinction between
international organizations and international organization. Par-
ticular organizations may be nothing more than playthings of
power politics and handmaidens of national ambitions. But inter-
national organization, considered as an historical process, repre-
sents a secular trend toward the systematic development of an
enterprising quest for political means of making the world safe
for human habitation. It may fail, and peter out ignominiously.
But if it maintains the momentum which it has built up in the
twentieth century, it may yet effect a transformation of human
relationships on this planet which will at some indeterminate
point justify the assertion that the world has come to be governed
—that mankind has become a community capable of sustaining
order, promoting justice, and establishing the conditions of that
good life which Aristotle took to be the supreme aim of politics.

This is the conception of international organization that Arthur
Swcetser had in mind when, on the occasion of his retirement
after thirty-four years of active membership in the first generation
of international civil servants, he addressed his colleagues of the
United Nations staff:

You were bom out of the labor and travail of these older days [of
the League}: you are the successors of those who tried to build
!>efore you, got swept temporarily away, but still left foundations
to which you could anchor. You base built prodigiously upon
diem: I would not, in those first days of 1920. base dated dream you
would get so far so fast. Don't underestimate this progress.

The great lesson of all this effort and suffering, even frequent
disappointment, is that you are right, eternally right, in the fight
you are making. You have got hold of the big things of life: you
are on the road to the future; you 3re working for all the ends that
make life worth while on this planet — for peace, for the eradica-
tion of war, for human advancement, for human rights and de-
cencies, lor Letter lising standards, better education, better health,
better food, better homes, belter labor conditions, better trascl and
communications — in short, for the world as it ought to be.

This is the highest secular cause on earth. You desen e to be
immensely proud of what you are doing, especially that you are
privileged to be part of the permanent staff. During your low and
grim moments, lift your eyes. I t>eg you, to these osier horiiom
beyond. tie up out of the irritations and anxieties ol tire moment

SWORDS

ITO FLOW5H.

-148

ginning to see its problems “in the round’’; 2 international organ-
ization provides "a world's eye view” 3 of basic problems which
can hardly fail to affect the perspectives of governments. Aware-
ness of the scope and complex interrelatedness of the problems
at hand is the necessary starting point for satisfactory solutions.

. The world is not only developing a more sophisticated con-
ception of its problems, but it is also beginning to recognize that
global problems require global solutions. International organiza-
tion is something more than a gathering of national governments;
it is, in a very rudimentary sense, an expression of the concept
that there is an international community which bears responsi-
bility for dealing with matters which refuse to be confined within
national boundaries. Statesmen assemble at the United Nations
to promote the interests of their national constituencies, but they
cannot altogether escape the tendency to feel that they compose
a collective body whose constituency is mankind. The interna-
tional community has become a little bit more than a dream of
idealists. There is a limited sense in which it is meaningful to
speak of a United Nations which imposes a principle of interna-
tional accountability upon its member states, asserts its juris-
diction in areas previously encompassed by the functional bound-
aries of sovereignty, and assumes responsibility for doing as much
of what must be done as can be done, on behalf of humanity.

The long-range effects of international organization upon the
multistate system cannot be confidently predicted. It may be
regarded as a process of evolutionary unification; yet, it functions
now to support the fragmentation of empires into groups of newly
independent States. It may be regarded as a process of gradual
replacement of national governments as the major agencies for
the management of human affairs; yet, it operates now less to de-
prive governments of their domestic functions than to assist them
in acquiring the competence to do their jobs more effectively. It
may be regarded as a process leading to the eventual transcend-
ence of the multistate system; yet, its immediate function is to re
form and supplement the system, so as to make the maintenance
of legal, political, and administrative pluralism compatible with
the requirements of an interdependent world.

[I?''- %**?"*•"* and ,yorld Community, p. 119.

in the Service of Man," United No-
tion Review, July 1955, p. 20.

CHAPTER

Developments in International
Organization, 1955-1958

The most characteristic feature of the contemporary world is
change— rapid, accelerating, and alf-encompassing change. In the
three short years since this booh was first delivered lor publication,
the extraordinary dynamism of human events has worked signifi-
cant alterations in the state of the world, and in the condition of
the organizational arrangements by which statesmen undertake to
deal with some of the circumstances which confront them and
their peoples. There is a close relationship between change in
world affairs and change in international organization. Tin's is
not to say that collective agencies have acquired more than a
limited capacity to control or direct the forces of change, or that
the growth of international organization has kept pace with the
enlarging requirements posed by the dynamics of international
relations. Nevertheless, the process of change in international
organization may be taken as a response, however imperfect, to
alterations in the gfobaf picture, and a factor, however marginal,
in the revision of that picture. With this concept in mind, it may
he useful to attempt an evaluation of the major developments
relevant to the field of international organization which have
oa uried between August 1955 and August 195S.

4St

HARtS

450 SWORDS INTO PLOWS

and realize that you have opportunities permitted to very few in-
deed.

You cannot feel too strongly that the right is on your side and that
your cause will win in the long run; it is your opponents who are
wrong and on the losing side.*

Sweetser's words proved nothing. They were an expression of
faith — that faith in the moral capacity and the rational capacity
of man which provides the philosophical underpinning of inter-
national organization. That faith may be mistaken, but it is not
wrong, or ignoble, or unworthy of any man. It represents modern
man at something very near his best.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Carr, E. H., Nationalism and After, London: Macmillan, 1915.

Commission to Study the Organization of Peace (Arthur N. Holcombe,
Chairman), Strengthening the United Nations, New York: Harper,
1957.

Feller, A. H., United Nations and World Community, Boston: Little,
Brown, 1952.

Finkelstein, Lawrence S., "Reviewing the United Nations Charter,
International Organization, May 1955, pp. 213-231.

Gross, Ernest A., "Revising the Charter,” Foreign Affairs, January
1951, pp. 203-2 1G.

Jessup, Philip C., The International Problem of Governing Mankind,
Claremont, Calif.: Claremont College. 1947.

Niebuhr, Reinhold, The Children of Light and the Children of
Darkness, New York: Scribner’s, 1950.

‘United Nations Bulletin, February I, 1955, p. 123.

DEVELOPMENTS IN ORGANIZATION, I 9 *5 5 - i 9 5 8 453

It is tempting to treat the drastic expansion of the world organi-
zation as a triumph for the principle of universalism, relegating to
the status of a qualifying footnote the fact that a few political
entities remain outside the United Nations. Indeed, the United
Nations has attained an unprecedented inclusiveness, thereby
developing the strongest claim yet possessed by a general inter-
national organization to function as the central agency of the
global body politic. Nevertheless, two highly significant reserva-
tions must be entered. First, the exclusion of Germany and the
virtual exclusion of China constitute major gaps in the universality
of the United Nations. In terms of population, power or power
potential, and political significance, these are nations of substantial
importance, and the notion that an agency which fails to include
them as meaningful participants can function as an essentially
universal organization is a statistical illusion.

Second, it must be noted that the expansion of the United
Nations has coincided with the continuing development of the
weight of regional organizations in international relations. In
the period since 1955, a new burst of federalizing energy has pro-
duced the European Economic Community and the European
Atomic Energy Community, incorporating the “nuclear six" of
Western Europe. The struggle between East and West has been
expressed to an increasing degree in the confrontation of the War-
saw Pact and NATO. In short, the quasi-universality of the United
Nations represents something considerably less than the domi-
nance of the principle of globalism in international organization.
The significance of regional agencies, effectively divorced from
any United Nations direction or control, is a primary fact of our
time.

The fact remains that the admission of twenty-two new mem-
bers to the United Nations has important implications for the
organization and its place in world affairs. This decisive turn of
events had the paradoxical effect of both remedying the under-
representation of Europe and providing a considerable increase in
the relative weight of the non-European grouping in the United
Nations. Looking at the distribution of voting capacity in the
General Assembly, one sees that Europe now holds a larger seg-
ment of the votes, the Latin American bloc represents a dimin-
ished factor, the Soviet bloc has grown to nine — with Yugoslavia

452

SWORDS INTO PLOWS!

HARES

Membership of the United Nations

The most obvious recent modification of the United Nations is
the drastic expansion of it membership. The walls of exclusion
came tumbling down on December 14, 1955, when a group o
sixteen new members* was approved. This event, made^ possi e
by American abandonment of opposition in principle to package
deals" and both American and Soviet concessions regarding the
content of the package, signalized the beginning of the end of the
‘‘membership problem" as it had existed for several years. In 195
and 1957, Sudan, Tunisia, Morocco, Japan, Ghana, and Malaya
were admitted to the organization. Thus, the list of applicants or
potential applicants barred by the political struggle between East
and West has been reduced to the Mongolian People's Republic
and the entities representing the artificial divisions of Germany,
Korea, and Vietnam. Realistically, if not technically, the roster o
the excluded states should also include China, since the continu-
ing refusal to seat representatives of the Chinese Communist re-
gime in effect deprives that state of its membership status. Switzer-
land remains the sole state, except for the diminutives, abstaining
from membership wholly of its own accord. The evidence of recent
experience suggests that new states produced by the dissolution of
European colonialism will henceforth be admitted as they emerge,
without significant hindrance by the political rivalries of the Cold
War. The combining of Egypt and Syria into the United Arab
Republic led to the relinquishment of their separate status in
favor of membership for their union, thus reducing the roster of
the United Nations from its peak of eighty-two to eighty-one.
Despite the ease with which a solution was reached in this case,
it appears likely that difficult political issues may be posed in the
future with regard to the continued membership, as separate
entities, of states which may enter into international schemes in-
volving, in varying and uncertain degree, the pooling of sover-
eignty. The politics of membership has not been abolished, but
its earlier version, the politics of exclusion, has ceased to dominate
the United Nations.

» Albania. Austria. Bulgaria, Cambodia, Ceylon. Finland, Hungary. Ireland Italy,
Jordan. Laos, Libya, Nepal. Portugal, Romania, and Spam

DEVELOPMENTS IN ORGANIZATION, 1955-1958 455

Soviets have never forgotten — that majority decision has no proper
place in international affairs. Now that the West has lost its as-
sured capacity to win voting contens in the Assembly, it ts clear
that Assembly decisions are entitled to no particular respect. The
one-state — one-vote rule is an absurdity; only the adoption of a
weighted voting arrangement could enable the Assembly to re-
flect political reality. It is intolerable that the selfish will of an
irresponsible majority should be regarded as the voice of the in-
ternational community. If the obligations of the Charter seem to
require that decisions of United Nations organs be taken seriously,
so much the worse for the Charter; it is neither prudent nor proper
for a state to bend its foreign policy to meet the requirements
posed by the Charter.*

This composite commentary on the state of affairs produced by
the changes in the membership roster of the United Nations de-
serves careful analysis. It should be noted that the evils complained
of are largely hypothetical; they are the products of fearful think-
ing. The solidarity of the Asian-Arab-African bloc is far from
perfect. It functions with considerable effectiveness within a
limited range of issues, but it is by no means an all-purpose
majority or veto-group. It includes a number of states that are
distinctly pro-Wesiem in policy — even some that are formally
allied with major Western powers. The American majority in the
Assembly is no longer so nearly automatic as it was in earlier years,
but there is no evidence that the United States has lost its capacity
to operate as the primary determinant of General Assembly action,
provided it leads with skill and sensitivity. Moreover, the unreal-
ism reflected in the rule of equal voting power for all members in
the Assembly is matched by the unrealism exhibited by those who
ignore the fact that the major states exercise an influence in that
body far out of proportion to their formal voting capacity; precise

• For various aspects of this composite picture, see, for instance, Walter Lippmann,
"The Politics of the U.N.,” New York Herald Tribune, February 7, 1957; Dean
Acheson. "Foreign Policy and Presidential MoraKsm,” The Reporter, May 2, 1957,
pp. 10-14: Dean Acheson, Power and Diplomacy (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1958), pp. 41-42; Louis ] Halle, “A Touch of Nausea," AVu> Republic, Janu-
ary 21, 1957, pp 15-17; Hans J. Morgenthau. "The Decline and Fail of American
Foreign policy," New Republic, December 10. 1956, pp 11-16; Ernest Lefever, Ethics
and Foreign Polity (New York: Meridian Books. 1957), Chap. 4. Cf. Stanley Hoff-
mann, "Sisyphus and the Avalanche: The United Nations. Egypt and Hungary,"
international Organization, Summer 1957, p. 465.

i WORDS INTi

PLOWSHARES

sometimes added— and the Asian-Arab-African grouping looms
large with the formidable total of twenty-eight members.

The increase in the relative voting power of the latter group
to the point where it can alone, or in combination with the Soviet
bloc or some of the Latin American states, conceivably defeat
proposals requiring a two-thirds majority in the General Assemb y
or actually muster such a majority to pass resolutions in the s
sembly, is obviously a development of great political importance.
There is every reason to assume that the formal actions of t e
Assembly will increasingly reflect the interests and points of view
of governments which speak for peoples outside the European
tradition — 'peoples broadly characterizable as non-white, new y
emergent, anticolonial, and economically underprivileged. The
era of Europeanism in world politics has plainly come to an en ,
the new composition of the United Nations is a symbol of the
globalization of international politics, of the fact that the won
is now "the world-including-Europe" and no longer "Europe-and-
its-periphery.” 3

The institutional expression of this political revolution is per-
haps less significant than the emotional reaction to it in the
Western countries, notably Britain, France, and the United
States. Stirred by the realization that the expansion of the United
Nations has altered the balance of voting power in the General
Assembly, numerous statesmen and commentators in these coun-
tries have jumped to extraordinarily pessimistic conclusions about
the organization.

Pieced together, the sad story Teads something like this: The
United Nations has come to be dominated by a mass of small states
which constitute a solid voting bloc. These states are generally
hostile to the West; on Cold War issues, they can be expected at
best to follow a neutralistic line; on issues relating to colonialism
and economic development they are unreasonably suspicious of
the West, impatient, and demanding. They are inclined to pry m
irresponsible fashion into the remnants of colonial empires, and
to “soak the Tich** without scruple. The West has been reduced
to a permanent minority position in the General Assembly. I"
these circumstances, the West must rediscover the truth which the

•Sec Eric Stein, Some Imputations of Expanding United Katio
(New York: Carnegie Endowment for International reace. 1956).

i Membership

DEVELOPMENTS IN ORGANIZATION, 1955-1958 457

a picture of a Western minority hopelessly outclassed by an anti-
Western majority.

Much of the contemporary pessimism and criticism which is
directed against the General Assembly owes its inspiration to the
crises in Hungary and the Middle East which challenged the
United Nations in 1956. The performance of the Assembly in
these cases has given rise to charges of irresponsibility, bias, appli-
cation of double standards of judgment, unrealistic legalism, and
the like. Particularly in Britain, France, and the United States,
commentators have expressed regret that the United Nations
should have come to be dominated by such a body as the General
Assembly has become.

Whatever these episodes may demonstrate, they clearly do not
provide evidence that the West has lost its grip in the Assembly.
With Tegard to the Hungarian case, the Assembly has repeatedly
voted its strenuous disapproval of Soviet behavior in a country
which is on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain. In a long series of
votes, the West has consistently scored victories which belie the
notion that neutralism has deprived it of the possibility of using
the Assembly to register an anti-Soviet consensus on major politi-
cal issues. In the Middle Eastern crisis in 1956, Britain, France,
and Israel suffered the humiliation of condemnation by a majority
which included the United States and the bulk of the Western
group; if the Assembly acted "irresponsibly" in that case, the
irresponsibility must be attributed largely to the United States,
the leader of the West, not to a congeries of little states, throwing
around a voting weight they do not deserve and expressing an
anti-Western prejudice that debases the moral pretensions of
the General Assembly.

Who, indeed, acted irresponsibly and unrealistically in these
crises? The Soviet Union was guilty of grossly irresponsible con-
duct in Hungary. The Assembly displayed a strong sense of re-
sponsibility alike in condemning Soviet action and in accepting
the realistic proposition that it possessed no capacity for forcible
restraint of Soviet action. In the Middle Eastern case, a consider-
able measure of irresponsibility and unrealism must be attributed
to all the parties directly involved in the situation. But, given the
outbreak of hostilities in an area where problems had long festered
and provocations had repeatedly occurred, it is difficult to im-

458 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

agine what reaction by the Assembly would have been less subject
to valid criticism than the course which it actually followed.
Would it have been responsible behavior for the Assembly to
endorse or acquiesce in armed attack upon a member state? Shou
the United States have asserted, and the Assembly agreed, that
the principle of non-aggression restricts only Communist states? s
it realistic to suppose that an organization dedicated to the main-
tenance of peace can achieve its purpose by leaving it to certain
members to decide for themselves when they are justified m
pursuing national interests by resort to war? Realistically, woul
the danger of global war have been more effectively minimized by
the Assembly's endorsement of the invasion of Egypt than by its
mobilization of pressure to stop the attack? Would the capacity
of the United States to function as the leader of the non-Com*
munist world have been strengthened by a demonstration of auto-
matic support for whatever actions Britain and France might take?
There is, no doubt, much room for debate concerning the com-
plex and confused details of the problems that confronted the
Assembly in 1956 and subsequently. The evidence leaves no room
for the suggestion that these critical cases illustrate the degenera-
tion of the expanded General Assembly into a machine for the
crushing of Western interests by an irresponsible majority.

The ultimate implications of the enlarged membership of the
United Nations remain to be seen. It is a reasonable presumption
that no gTeat posver will be able to use as a rubber stamp for its
policies an Assembly in which more than four-score states, great
and small, possess formally independent and formally equal voting
capacity. The situation which requires the Western powers to
exercise responsible and sensitive leadership in order to gain
majority support for their initiatives is more nearly in accord with
the political reality of our time than was the earlier situation
which enabled them to control the voice of the United Nations on
many issues without great difficulty. The old pattern of over-
whelming voting victories for the West in an Assembly that pur-
ported to represent the realities of a divided world was the supreme
artificiality. The decline of this pattern neither presages the in-
exorable development of a pattern of voting defeats for the West,
nor deprives the majority voice of any moral significance it may
have previously possessed. If majoritariamsm has no more moral

DEVELOPMENTS IN ORGANIZATION, I 955-J958 459

validity in the augmented Assembly than in the earlier restricted
one, it has no less moral validity when the Western powers lose
than when they win.

It is clear that Western misgivings about the expanded General
Assembly actually relate to the question of its manageability and
usefulness as an instrument of foreign policy, rather than the
question of its quality as an institutional representation of world
political reality, or its capacity to produce decisions reflecting
responsible concern for the stability and welfare of the global
community. There is perhaps an inverse relationship between
manageability and the latter qualities; the more fully the Assembly
represents the global picture, and the more seriously it aspires to
reflect the global interest, the less susceptible it may become to
the efforts of the Western coalition to dominate its actions. But
there may also be a negative correlation between manageability
and usefulness to Western interests. If voting victories for the
West are less certain and more difficult to achieve in the future,
they may by the same token be more meaningful and salutary.
Moreover, the development of an Assembly less subject to easy
manipulation by a permanent majority may contribute markedly
to the growth of an effective system of international organization
which is in the interest of all nations that value their survival. The
world is not ruled by votes in international organizations. What-
ever progress may be possible toward the evolution of a larger role
for such civilized devices in international life will be furthered by
the development of a tradition of vigorous and meaningful con-
tests for voting support by rival leaders, operating within the
context of a General Assembly which is nobody's tool.

The Hungarian and Middle Eastern Crises of 1956

The significance of the unlocking of the doors to United Na-
tions membership as an e\ent in the recent life of the organization
is matched by that of the shaking of its foundations by the seismic
shocks of the Soviet reconquest of rebellious Hungary, and the
Israeli, British, and French invasion of Egypt in the fall of 195G.
While we have commented briefly upon the United Nations re-
action to these events, to the extent of denying the suggestion

460 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

that it is indicative of the degeneration of the Assembly into an
irresponsible and irretrievably anti-Western body, it remains for
us to note positively certain major implications of the United Na-
tions response to them.

These crises provided the first experience of the organization,
outside the context of the Korean conllict, in utilizing the Uniting
for Peace system. The Security Council was rendered ineffective
by the veto power of the Soviet Union in the Hungarian case, and
of Britain and France in the Middle Eastern case; the General
Assembly promptly entered the picture. Moreover, the Assembly
readily produced resolutions in condemnation of the defendant
states, including three of the great powers. Thus far, the expecta-
tions implicit in the Uniting for Peace scheme were fulfilled. The
collective veto power of the neutralistic segment of the Assembly
was not exercised. The American tendency to concentrate disap
proval upon aggressive action by Communist states did not rule,
‘as the United States took the lead in mobilizing the sentiment
of the Assembly against all the offending states, including its
staunchest anti-Communist allies as well as its major antagonist
in the global struggle.

This sublime impartiality of American policy came as a surprise
to many governments which had regarded the United States as
a single-mindedly anti-Communist power, and as a major shock
to the friends of the United States who found themselves the ob-
jects of American indictment. It was, moreover, a traumatic
experience for many Americans, including, in all probability, the
American leaders who were responsible for the policy. The "My
God, what have we done” reaction was typified by former Secre-
tary of State Dean Acheson, who castigated, in sorrow and anger,
the policy which placed the United States alongside the Soviet
Union in rescuing Nasser, the Egyptian dictator, from defeat, and
in humiliating and frustrating Israel and the two major European
allies of the United States 5

The criticisms of the American stand came essentially to this
point: the United States had chosen to behave like a collective-
security power, not like an ally. In the Middle Eastern situation,
Uniting for Peace had prevailed over NATO. Acheson could dis-

* "foreign Policy and Presidential Morahsm.” loc. cit ; Poner and Diplomacy
p 114

461

DEVELOPMENTS IN ORGANIZATION, 1955-1958

approve of the choice, but he could not disclaim all responsibility,
for he had been a leading architect of the dilemma which con-
fronted the United States Government. As Secretary of State, he
had headed the United States in the alliance direction — through
NATO — and in the direction of collective security-through the
Uniting for Peace resolution. These moves had been conceived
as complementary measures; NATO would take collective action,
and the General Assembly, under the Uniting for Peace resolu-
tion, would bestow collective approval upon that action. But the
crisis over Egypt brought clearly into the open the inherent po-
tentiality of conflict between NATO, representing the mentality
of alliance, and the Uniting for Peace system, representing the
mentality of collective security. In this crisis, when the implications
of the one system had to be rejected to permit acceptance of the
other, the former Secretary of State was outraged that Achesonian
collective security posture was chosen at the expense of Achesonian
coalition posture.

In the fall of 1956, the General Assembly exhibited a collective
security orientation — an orientation which condemned the use
of force for unilaterally determined national purposes, and which
paid no heed to the identity of the states thus resorting to military
action. This is not to say that the Assembly had a collective
security system — or that its members had either the intention or
the possibility of acting decisively to realize the objectives of col-
lective security. The Assembly mobilized the variant pressures of
condemnation and persuasion. The Soviet Union stood contemp-
tuously against these pressures, presumably confident that the
sense of realism would discourage its critics from contemplating
coercive action against it. The invaders of Egypt yielded reluc-
tantly and bitterly to these pressures, swayed by a variety of con-
siderations and encouraged by the provision of a United Nations
Emergency Force to ease their anxieties and mitigate their humili-
ation.

It is important to note how limited was the effective operation
of the collective security principle in these cases. The Assembly's
dynamism svas fundamentally dependent upon American leader-
ship. The United States was firmly committed to the avoidance
of war with the Soviet Union; coercive action against that power,
with or without the label of collective sanctions, was simply ex-

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iriirt tw deeife whether to support economic sanctions dr-

y«\*vi tv\ jwss Israel into compliance with the Assembly's demand
fir withdrawal; ia effect. American reluctance to face this qn»-
ti«\ GotOtalM its formal consideration until Israeli compliance
eliminated the issue. This episode indicates how thoroughly un-
Hiely it was that a serious effort to organize effective sanctions
against Israel, Britain, and France would have been undertaken
if the circumstances had demanded. Indeed, a Soviet suggestion
that armed forces from the two major powers might collaborate
to enforce the wall of the United Nations in the Middle East
was rejected as “unthinkable” by the United States.*

Whatever its inclination toward a collective security orientation,
the United States was literally appalled at the thought of the
possible implications of a collective security stand: military action
against its allies; military action against the Soviet Union; mili-
tary action in collaboration with the Soviet Union. The first
of these possibilities would destroy the coalition which is the
heart of American foreign policy; the second would be likely to
precipitate a global war; the third would involve the introduction
of Soviet forces into an area from which the United States wishes
at all costs to exclude them. The evidence suggests strongly that
American policy is fundamentally opposed to the acceptance of
the implications of the collective security doctrine. Given this
fact, it appear* that the United Nations response to the crises of
195G svas essentially as freakish, and as little indicative of a genuine
movement toward the creation of a collective security system, as

463

DEVELOPMENTS IN ORGANIZATION, 1955-1958

of order, they also failed to demonstrate the superiority of regional
security alliance systems as instruments of order. To put it mildly,
the crises in Hungary and the Middle East did nothing to enhance
the prestige of, or to prove the institutional effectiveness or politi-
cal solidarity of, such entities as the Warsaw Pact, NATO, the
Baghdad Pact, or the Arab League. Nevertheless, the increased
awareness of the unacceptability of the implications of collective
security which resulted from the flirtation with that principle in
1956 has stimulated a renewed tendency to rely upon regional
schemes as the major bulwarks of security in the global political
struggle. In particular, the Western coalition has concentrated
its effort upon the reconstruction and improvement of the NATO
system.

The major innovation of recent years in the institutional struc-
ture of the United Nations, viewed as a political organization, is
the United Nations Emergency Force. In the Middle Eastern
crisis, the General Assembly called for the creation of a collective
force, drawn from states other than the Big Five, to facilitate with-
drawal of invading troops, supervise cease-fire arrangements, and
provide a safeguard against renewal of conflict. 7 In response, ten
states contributed contingents of military personnel, and fourteen
others offered to do so. In a remarkable flurry of improvisation, a
force of more than five thousand men, commanded by Canadian
Genera] E. L. M. Bums under the genera] direction of Secretary-
General Hammarskjold and an Advisory Committee established
by the Assembly, was introduced into Egypt with the consent of
that state. UNEF, having contributed notably to the creation of
conditions favoring the disentanglement of the forces that invaded
Egypt in 1956, remains as a stabilizing factor in Arab-Israeli rela-
tions.

In assessing the significance of UNEF, it is important to note its
specialized character and the distinct limitations of its function.

It is not an international army, designed to serve as an instrument
of collective security by combatting the forces of an aggressor, but
an instrument of pacific settlement. Its establishment was a politi-
cal act facilitating agreement upon the restoration of the shattered

'General Assembly Resolutions 998. 1 000. and 100) (ES-J), November 4, 5, and 7,
19,0 Sec Leland M. Coodrtch and Gabrielis E. Rosner, “The United Nations
Emergency Fort*,” International Organization, Summer 1957. pp. 413-430.

464 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

peace of the Middle East; its operational role is that of a politically
significant international guardian of the peace, a symbolic im-
pediment to a new outburst of hostilities between Egypt (now a
segment of the United Arab Republic) and Israel. Various sug-
gestions have been made for the establishment of a permanent
force comparable to UNEF. 8 Whether or not this objective is
realized, the pattern of experience developed in the creation and
operation of UNEF will remain available to the United Nations.
Thus, the invention of UNEF constitutes a permanently signifi-
cant addition to the resources for peace-keeping and peace-Testor-
ing upon which the United Nations may be able to draw in future
crises. In mid-1958, the Middle East is again aflame, with violent
upheavals in Lebanon and Iraq, and with the United States and
Britain giving military support to the anxious regimes in Lebanon
and Jordan. At this writing, it is uncertain whether the United
Nations will confine itself to the provision of military observers
in the troubled zone or will find it necessary to launch a new
version of the UNEF experiment.

The UNEF episode provides one of the most striking illustra-
tions of a tendency which has grown apace in recent years: the
tendency of the members of the United Nations to encourage and
demand the emergence of the Secretary-General as an interna-
tional statesman and diplomat. The concept of UNEF was intro-
duced to the Assembly by Lester B. Pearson, as spokesman for
Canada: seizing upon this idea as a promising method for dealing
with the Middle Eastern crisis, the Assembly placed primary re-
sponsibility upon Hammarskjold for translating the concept into
a concrete plan, undertaking the delicate negotiations necessary
for giving effect to the plan, translating it into operational reality,
and providing the central direction for the day-to-day functioning
of UNEF. The essential feature of this episode was not an asser-
tion by the Secretary-General of a claim to play a major political
role in the United Nations, but an assertion by the General As-
sembly of its reliance upon him to provide executive leadership
and diplomatic initiative. Increasingly, the expectation of this
sort of service from the Secretary-General has come to prevail

•See William R. Frye. A United Kalians Peace Force (New York: Oceana Publica-
tions, 1957); Commission to Study the Organization of Peace, Strengthening the
United Kations. pp. 5. 36-38. 65-68, 86-88; Lester B. Pearson. “Force For U. N -
Foreign Affairs, April 1957. pp 395-101.

465

DEVELOPMENTS IN ORGANIZATION, ] 955-1 958
among members of the organization. 9 The unanimous reelection
of Dag Hammarskjold as Secretary-General by the Twelfth Gen-
eral Assembly indicated general approval of the manner in which
he has responded to this challenge.

The institutional inventiveness of the United Nations in the
face of grave crises, expressed in the creation of UNEF and the
enlargement of the role of the Secretary-General, has by no means
proved adequate to cope with the grimmest political possibilities
of the contemporary world. The collapse of the peace of the Mid-
dle East in the fall of 1956 was a consequence of the failure of
the United Nations to achieve a viable settlement of the complex
issues which had troubled that region over a long period. The re-
sourceful performance of the organization in preventing near-dis-
aster from becoming total disaster did not compensate for its
previous ineffectiveness; the heart of the peace-keeping problem is
to prevent the approach of nations to the brink of war, not to
devise brilliant rescue operations at the very edge of catastrophe.

The brutal insistence of the Soviet Union upon the retention
of its stranglehold upon Hungary provided merely the most shock-
ing of many pieces of evidence that the will of the United Nations
is subject to defiance by states determined upon arbitrary courses
of action. No resolution of the Security Council or General As-
sembly, from the most solemn admonition to desist from violation
of the Charter to the most expressly advisory suggestion regarding
national policy, is immune from such disregard. While there is no
magic wand available for eliminating the capacity of states to
defy the United Nations, there is profound need for recognizing
the reality that the organization is subject to defiance and for
developing measures to reduce the probability of such behavior.

It might be argued that the Middle Eastern crisis represented
the penalty for the world's success in drastically reducing the
availability of unilateral force as a useful instrument of national
policy. This reduction is not total; sheer coercion served the Soviet
purpose in Hungary, even though the global revulsion against
it may have diminished the political value of the Soviet success.
Nevertheless, it is clear that a number of factors — including the
prudential restraint of governments when confronted by the im-

• Elmore Jackson, " The Developing Role of the Secretary -General." International
Organization, Summer 1957 pp. 431-S-S3.

466 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

plications of thermonuclear war, and the legal and moral restric-
tions associated with the development of international organiza-
tion — have tended to deprive states of the option of resorting to
force as a practical means of achieving their purposes. This repre-
sents a fundamental gain for peace and order — but not an unmiti-
gated gain. In so far as the threat of unilateral military reprisal is
eliminated, and is not replaced by the threat of collective sanctions,
states may be encouraged to assume that they can trespass with
impunity upon the rights of others. One may or may not agree
with the contentions of Israel, Britain, and France that they in-
vaded Egypt to redress intolerable wrongs which they had suffered
at the hands of a regime contemptuous of its legal obligations;
one may or may not agree that they were justified in responding
to provocation in the manner which they chose. But, regardless
of the merits of this particular case, the point is clear that states,
freed from the inhibiting fear of military punishment, may cast
off the restraints of international law and morality, thus under-
mining the foundations of international order — and, ultimately,
producing a violent explosion by the victims of their behavior.
There is sound logic in the ancient Decalogue which prohibits
both theft and murder; uninhibited theft will surely lead to
murder. An international “Thou shall not resort to force” can-
not be effective unless it is accompanied by an effective “Thou
shalt not violate thy neighbor's rights.” In the degree to which
the sanction of unilateral military action has been constrained,
the challenge of developing meaningful collective restraints upon
antisocial international behavior is presented to the United Na-
tions.

The United Nations and the Colonial Problem

The passing years have not produced a resolution of the tension
between the powers administering dependent peoples and the
states espousing the cause of anticolonialism. In general, the
colonial powers have adhered to the policy of conceding as little
as possible to the view that matters pertaining to dependent
peoples are properly within the domain of international debate

DEVELOPMENTS IN ORGANIZATION, 1955-1958 467

or action. For instance, Portugal and Spain, as recently admitted
members of the United Nations, have refrained from making the
formal admission that they possess colonies which fall within the
scope of the Declaration on Non-Self-Governing Territories
(Chapter XI of the Charter). Conversely, the anticolonial bloc
has continued to press for clear acknowledgment of the principle
of national self-determination, and to assert the broad competence
of the United Nations to concern itself with the affairs of depend-
ent peoples.

The political development of the General Assembly leaves little
room for doubt that colonial issues are indelibly imprinted upon
the agenda of international concern. Legalists may quarrel over
points of constitutional interpretation, but the reality of the
world political climate dictates the recognition that these are
international problems, and that they will be discussed in the
international forum.

The recent record of the United Nations in dealing with such
problems provides no assurance that they will be handled with
Olympian wisdom, but neither does it confirm the allegation that
the organization has nothing to contribute but a massive unreason-
ableness which will distort the issues and aggravate the conflicts.
The proposition that colonial issues can be neatly resolved if only
the members of the United Nations can be persuaded to leave
them alone is supported by no substantial evidence. In 1955, the
Assembly yielded to the demand of France that the Algerian case
be stricken from its agenda, but neither in this case nor in others
which have been somewhat similarly treated is there any indica-
tion that the deference of the United Nations to the principle of
leaving colonial problems to the parties concerned lias proved
particularly helpful. It is no doubt true that such problems may be
exacerbated by international debate, but the fundamental source
of inflammation lies in the climate of contemporary world politics,
not in the rhetorical atmosphere of the Assembly’s chamber.

Since 1955, the liquidation of the United Nations Trusteeship
System has begun. Acting upon the initiative of Britain, the
General Assembly and the Trusteeship Council collaborated f n
sponsoring a process of self-determination which culminated i„
the decision of the people of British Togoland to join the nrigj,.

boring Gold Coast in the creation of the independent state of
Ghana. 1 ® _ ,

Tiie United Nations responded svith initial scepticism to a re-
quest by France for endorsement of a process purportedly dcsigne
to enable French Togoland to exercise self-determination, but the
Twelfth General Assembly adopted a plan for consultation of
the popular will in that territory during 1938. with the express
indication that the termination of trusteeship svas in prospect.

The probability of a repetition of the British Togoland solu-
tion svas indicated in early 1933, when Britain announced to the
Trusteeship Council that it regarded the British Cameroons as
prepared to consider the question of uniting in independent state-
hood svith Nigeria. Morcoscr, the termination of Italian trustee-
ship over Italian Somaliland is scheduled to occur in 1900.

Hence, it appears that the list of trusteeship areas may soon
have declined from its peak of eleven to seven or even less. In one
sense, this is symbolic of the success of the Trusteeship System;
the stated objective of the system is to prepare its wards for scl •
government or independence. In another sense, however, t e
shrinkage of the system is indicative of the failure of the hopes
which were entertained at San Francisco; trusteeship lias not be-
come, for administering states or for dependent peoples and their
champions, an appealing alternative to other methods of dealing
with the problems of colonial status. The evidence would suggest
that the Trusteeship System is destined for gradual extinction, as
its present wards graduate to advanced political status and are
not replaced by other peoples in need of supervised tutelage. Re-
cent evidence confirms the notion that the contribution of the
United Nations to the promotion of the welfare and progress o
dependent peoples must be made largely by methods other than
those involved in the scheme of trusteeship.

The Development of Functionalism

The years since 1955 have been characterized by continuation
of the trend toward the primacy of the functional emphasis in
"James S. Coleman. “Togoland “ International Conciliation, No. 509. Sepwmbe*
1956.

“General Assembly Resolution 1182 (XII), November 29. 1957.

DEVELOPMENTS IN ORGANIZATION, 1955-1958 469

contemporary international organization. The proportion of
budgetary funds allocated to economic and social activities by
the United Nations has shown a steady increase. 12
. The resources invested in the United Nations Expanded Pro-
gram of Technical Assistance have grown from year to year; in
1957, the Assembly adopted a plan for a Special Projects Fund
which, it was anticipated, would involve the expansion of the
program from about $30 million to approximately $100 million
per year. 13

The roster of the Specialized Agencies has been expanded to
include the International Finance Corporation, the International
Atomic Energy Agency (in a unique status) , and the Inter-Gov-
emmental Maritime Consultative Organization. A new effort to
establish an agency in the commercial field has been undertaken,
with the drafting of a charter for the Organization for Trade
Cooperation. The rising significance of the functional trend is
also evident on the regional level. The Twelfth General Assembly
initiated the creation of an Economic Commission for Africa,
and the states leading the movement for European unity have
undertaken the daring functional experiment of establishing the
European Economic Community and the European Atomic En-
ergy Community, agencies which follow the lead of the European
Coal and Steel Community in adopting institutional innovations
Worthy of the adjective, “supranational.” 14

The exuberant growth of functionalism is clearly a major aspect
of the evolutionary process of international organization.

It remains an open qtrestion whether the economic and social
activities sponsored by the United Nations system will produce
the salutary results in the political sphere which are promised by
the theory of functionalism. The first real opportunity of testing
the impact of functional collaboration upon the political relations
between the two major powers has arisen, as the Soviet Union
has moved toward fuller participation in the agencies and pro-

«See the data presented by Walter M. Kouchnig, Deportment of Stmt Bulletin,
September 9. 1957, p 4JS.

“General Assembly Resolution 1219 (XII). Deeetnber 14, 1957.

“See Ruben Efron and Allan S. Nan es. “The Emerging Concept of Supranational-
Ur in Retent International Agreements," Kenhteky Lav Journal, Winter 1956. p p.
201-200, and “The Common Market and Euratotn Treaties Supranationality and
the Integration ol Europe/* The International and Comparative Imv Quarterly,
October 1937, pp CTO 694

458 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

boring Gold Coast in the creation of the independent state of
Ghana. 10

The United Nations responded with initial skepticism to a re-
quest by France for endorsement of a process purportedly designed
to enable French Togoland to exercise self-determination, but the
Twelfth General Assembly adopted a plan for consultation of
the popular will in that territory during 1958, with the express
indication that the termination of trusteeship was in prospect.

The probability of a repetition of the British Togoland solu-
tion was indicated in early 1958, when Britain announced to t ic
Trusteeship Council that it regarded the British Cameroon* as
prepared to consider the question of uniting in independent state-
hood with Nigeria. Moreover, the termination of Italian trustee-
ship over Italian Somaliland is scheduled to occur in 19G0.

Hence, it appears that the list of trusteeship areas may soon
have declined from its peak of eleven to seven or even less. In one
sense, this is symbolic of the success of the Trusteeship System,
the stated objective of the system is to prepare its wards for self-
government or independence. In another sense, however, the
shrinkage of the system is indicative of the failure of the hopes
which were entertained at San Francisco: trusteeship has not be-
come, for administering states or for dependent peoples and their
champions, an appealing alternative to other methods of dealing
with the problems of colonial status. The evidence would suggest
that the Trusteeship System is destined for gradual extinction, as
its present wards graduate to advanced political status and are
not replaced by other peoples In need of supervised tutelage. Re-
cent evidence confirms the notion that the contribution of the
United Nations to the promotion of the welfare and progress of
dependent peoples must be made largely by methods other than
those involved in the scheme of trusteeship.

The Development of Functionalism

The years since 1955 have been characterized by continuation
of the trend toward the primacy of the functional emphasis in

"James S. Coleman, ‘‘Togoland," International Conciliation, No. 509. September
1956

“General Assembly Resolution 1182 (XII), November 29. 1957.

471

DEVELOPMENTS IN ORGANIZATION, 1955-1958

mands for ambitious programs to promote the realization of those
expectations.

Conclusions

It cannot be said that the period ] 955-] 958 offered reassurance
to a world groping desperately for a means to secure its survival.
The great powers continued to amass and perfect the instruments
of destruction. Negotiations for the limitation and control of these
instruments produced no significant results and broke down alto-
gether in the fall of 1957, despite the attempt of the United Na-
tions to provide a more favorable institutional setting for the dis-
cussions. Growing anxiety concerning the test explosions of
thermonuclear weapons was reflected in United Nations debates.
The political explosions of the period revealed the precariousness
of the peace. The population explosion, which threatened the
world with a doubling of its population in little more than a
generation, revealed the inadequacy of current efforts to build
the foundations of human welfare. The introductory propulsion
of human affairs into the infinity of space emphasized the finiteness
of the human social and political animal.

In the midst of these staggering perplexities, man stood with-
out a ready formula for the institutional guarantee of order and
security. City government confronted the jungle warfare of
juvenile gangs in New York; federal government watched the
growth of intransigent extremism in Little Rock; national govern-
ment tottered under the impact of revolution in countries ranging
from Cuba to Indonesia; colonial government sought vainly to
maintain its authority in Algeria; Soviet hegemony rested uneasily
over Eastern Europe; the NATO alliance strove to repair shattered
foundations and to cope with creeping fissures; the Arab League
lost all semblance of solidarity; the United Nations lived on the
hope that it could weather recurrent crises and endure the de-
fianoe and disregard of member stares, le seas nor .? good season for
the institutions of order. Governments, international organiza-
tions, and alliances all exhibited the defectiseness of the human
approach to social and political harmony.

Given this picture, there were few who could confidently hope

470 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

grams oE .he system: as yet, nothing has happened to dijpdtta
skepticism which challenges the hope that tacttonal construct on
may bridge the deep chasm which divides East and West,
probable that the best hope of demonstrating the political usefu -
ness of functional activity lies in the concentration of cooperan
work within the 2 one of the underdeveloped areas. This foe
United Nations economic and social activities has been s ea y
sharpened; between 1954 and 1958, the technical aid given oy
the United Nations to such newly-independent states as U Y 3 -
Vietnam, Cambodia. Laos. Sudan, Tunisia, Morocco, and Ghana
underwent a ten-fold increase.” This emphasis really represents
a combining of the functional and the trusteeship approac *
recognition of the reality that the greatest contribution wtnen
the United Nations can make to the self-government poten 1
of dependent peoples, under present political circumstances, «
not pre-independence tutelage but post-independence assistan
in creating the conditions of viable and stable economic a
social systems. The impact of functionalism upon the world po •
tics of the future is likely to be reflected primarily in the inter-
national behavior of the newest members of the gl° a c0
munity. ••

If the influence of functional activity upon contemporary po
tics is uncertain, the influence of contemporary politics upon un
tional programs is strikingly clear. The expanding emp asis
the United Nations system upon economic and social activitie ,
particularly those relevant to the progress of underdeve ope ^
areas, is a response to the political pressure generated y rc P
sentatives of the non-European world in the General Assem y
and elsewhere. The strength of the political demand for sue pro
grams was probably responsible for the Soviet decision r 1 j*
period of virtual abstention from the economic and socia 'vor
of the United Nations. The persistent pressure for the establis -
ment of a Special United Nations Fund for Economic Deve op
ment induced the United States to sponsor, as compromise meas
ures, the creation of the International Finance Corporation an
the Special Projects Fund, an adjunct to the program of tec mca
assistance. The revolution of rising expectations has been trans
lated in the United Nations into the phenomenon of rising e
“ United Nations Review, February 1958, p. 18.

APPENDIXES

4?2 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

ior the transformation of the United Nations into a model of
chaos-preventing authority. The surge of interest in a * rt * r
Review Conference subsided into a committee for the indefinite
postponement of such a venture; no amendments of the arte ^
seemed probable except for proposals to increase the sue o
United Nations organs in response to the growth of the orgamza
tion’s membership. In one sense, the urge to avoid tampering wit
the United Nations was an expression of the discouragement re
by awareness of the state of the world and the recognition of the
fallibility of human institutional patterns.

In another sense, however, this urge was a reflection o t e
resiliency of the human spirit. The United Nations, for all its im
perfections and inadequacies, is an achievement of the first mag
nitude. It is a symbol of the urge to civilization. It is a repository
of decent hopes and progressive aspirations. It is a center for t <•
consideration of, and a mechanism for the effectuation of, sue
plans as governments can agree upon to improve the common
human lot and safeguard the common human destiny. It is an
instrument for the mobilization of as much good will and goo
sense as the political leaders of divided humanity can muster or
dealing with the critical issues of our time. As such, it draws into
its proceedings the representatives of virtually every state whic
can contrive to obtain membership. The United Nations can be,
and is being, abused, used, and improved. It may not be the last
or the best hope of mankind, but it is an indispensable instrument
of the human effort to muddle through the crises of the present
and rise to the challenges of the future.

appendix I The Covenant of the
League of Nations*

The High Contracting Parties

In older to promote international co-operation and to achieve interna-
tional peace and security

by the acceptance of obligations not to resort to wst.

by the prescription of open, just and honourable relations between na-
tions,

by the firm establishment of the understandings of international law as
the actual rule of conduct among Governments,

and by the maintenance of justice and a scrupulous respect for all treaty
obligations in the dealings of organised peoples with one another,

Agree to this Covenant of the League of Nations.

Article J

1. The original Members of the League of Nations shall be those of the
Signatories which are named in the Annex to this Covenant and also such
of those other States named in the Annex as shall accede without reservation
to this Covenant. Such accession shall be effected by a Declaration deposited
vviih the Secretariat within two months of the coming into force of the
Covenant. Notice thereof shall be sent to all other Members of the League.

2. Any fully self-governing State, Dominion or Colony not named in the
Annex may become a Member of the League if its admission is agreed to by
two-thirds of the Assembly, provided that it shall give effective guarantees of
its sincere intention to observe its international obligations, and shall accept
*“ch regulations as may be prescribed by the League in regard to its military,
naval and air forces and armaments.

3. Any Member of the League may, after two years' notice of its intention
*o to do, withdraw from the League, provided that all its international ob-
ligations and all its obligations under this Covenant shall have been fulfilled
at the time of Its withdrawal.

• The turn printed in Julies Indicate amendments adopted by the Leaps*.

47$

appendix I The Covenant of the
League of Nations*

The High Contracting Parties

In order to promote Internationa! cooperation and to achieve interna-
tional peace and security

by the acceptance o£ obligations not to resort to war.

by the prescription of open, just and honourable relations between na-
tions.

by the firm establishment of the understandings of international law as
the actual rule of conduct among Government «,

and by the maintenance of justice and a scrupulous respect for all treaty
obligations in the dealings of organised peoples with one another.

Agree to this Covenant of the League of Nations.

Article I

J. The original Members of the League of Nations shall be those of the
Signatories which are named in the Annex to this Covenant and also such
of those other States named in the Annex as shall accede without reservation
to this Covenant. Such accession shall be effected by a Declaration deposited
with the Secretariat within two months of the coming into force of the
Covenant. Notice thereof shall be sent to all other .Members of the League.

2. Any fully self-governing State. Dominion or Colony not named in the
Annex may become a Member of the League if its admission Is agreed to by
two-thirds of the Assembly, provided that it shall give effective guarantees of
its sincere intention to observe its international obligations, and shall accept
such regulations as may be prescribed by the League in regard to its military,
nasal and air fotets and armaments.

9. Any Member of the League may. after two yean* notice of in intention
to to do, withdraw from the League, provided that all its international ob-
ligations and all itt obligations under this Covenant shall have been fulfilled
at the time of its withdrawal.

•The texts primed In Italics Indicate smrttdmmii a defied by the League.

4TJ

476

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

Article 2

The action of the League under this Covenant shall be effected through
the instrumentality of an Assembly and of a Council, with a permanent
Secretariat.

Article 5

1. The Assembly shall consist of Representatives of the Members of the
League.

2. The Assembly shall meet at stated intervals and from time to time

occasion may require at the Seat of the League or at such other place as
may be decided upon. . .

3. The Assembly may deal at its meetings with any matter within tn
sphere of action of the League or affecting the peace of the world.

4. At meetings of the Assembly, each Member of the League shall have
one vote, and may have not more than three Representatives.

Article 4

1. The Council shall consist of Representatives of the Principal Allied and
Associated Powers, together with Representatives of four other Members o
the League. These four Members of the League shall be selected by t > e
Assembly from time to time in its discretion. Until the appointment of i *
Representatives of the four Members of the League first selected by t e
Assembly, Representatives of Belgium, Brazil, Spain and Greece shall be
members of the Council.

2. With the approval of the majority of the Assembly, the Council may
name additional Members of the League whose Representatives shall always
be Members of the Council; the Council with litc approval may increase
the number of Members of the League to be selected by the Assembly or
representation on the Council.

2. til. The Assembl y shall fix by a two-thirds majority the rules dealing
with the election of the non-permanent Members of the Council, and par-
ticularly such regulations as relate to their term of office and the conditions
of re-eligibshty.

3. The Council shall meet from time to time a* occasion may require, an
at least once a year, at the Seat of the League, or at such other place a* may
be decided upon.

4. The Council may deal at its meetings with any matter within the
sphere of anion of the League or affecting the peace of the world.

5. Any Member of the League not represented on the Council shall be
Invited to send a Representative to sit as a member at any meeting of
the Council during the consideration of matters specially affecting the in-
terests of that Member of the League.

6. At meetings of the Council, each Member of the l-eague represented
on the Council shall have one vote, and may have not more than one
Representative.

the covenant of the league of nations

477

Article 5

1. Except where otherwise expressly provided in this Covenant or by the
terms ot the present Treaty, decisions at any meeting of the Assembly or of
the Council shall require the agreement of all the Members of the League
represented at the meeting.

2. All matters of procedure at meetings of the Assembly or of the Council,
including the appointment of Committees to investigate particular matters,
shall be regulated by the Assembly or by the Council and may be decided by
a majority of the Members of the League represented at the meeting.

3. The first meeting of the Assembly and the first meeting of the Council
shall be summoned by the President of the United States of America.

Article 6

1. The permanent Secretariat shall be established at the Seat of the
League. The Secretariat shall comprise a Secretary-General and such secre-
taries and staff as may be required.

2. The first Secretary-General shall be the person named in the Annex;
thereafter the Secretary-General shall be appointed by the Council with the
approval of the majority of the Assembly.

3. The secretaries and staff of the Secretariat shall be appointed by the
Secretary-General with the approval of the Council.

4. The Secretary-General shall act in that capacity at all meetings of the
Assembly and of the Council.

5. The expenses of (he League shall be borne by the Members of the
League in the proportion decided by the Assembly.

Article 7

1. The Seat of the League is established at Geneva.

2. The Council may at any time decide that the Seat of the League shall
be established elsewhere.

3. All positions under or in connection with the League, including the
Secretariat, shall be open equally to men and women.

4. Representatives of the Member * of the League and officials of the
League when engaged on the business of the League shall enjoy diplomatic
privileges and immunities.

5. The buildings and other property occupied by the League or its officials
or by Representatives attending its meetings shall be inviolable.

Article 8

f. The Members of the League recognise tftac (he namimtmr of
require* the reduction of national armaments to the lowest point consistent
with national safety and the enforcement by common action of mietnatij^j
obligations.

2. The Council, taking account of the g-ographieal situation and rircum-

478

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES
of each State, .Ml foliate plan, for .»ch reduction for the cott-
and — - «

T/!taS plan, have been adopted b, the .e.en.1
limits of armaments therein fixed shall not be exceeded wi

pence of the Council. . ...... v,« private

5. The Members of the League agree that the manufacture bj P
enterprise of munitions and implements of war is open to gray 1 ^

The Council shall advise how the evil effects attendant upo
facture can be prevented, due regard being had to the necessities of tho^
Members of the League which are not able to manufacture the
implements of war necessary for their safety. .

6 The Members of the League undertake to interchange fu
information as to the scale of their armaments, their military, naval ana
programmes and the condition of such of their industries as are adaptaoie
warlike purposes.

Article 9 “*

A permanent Commission shall be constituted to advise the 1 F°“ nC * i
the execution of the provisions of Articles 1 and 8 and on mi i ty,
and air questions generally.

Article iu

The Members of the League undertake to respect and preserve “ a 8 a
external aggression the territorial integrity and existing polmca >
ence of all Members of the League. In case of any such aggre i
case of any threat or danger of such aggression, the Council sha
upon the means by which this obligation shall be fulfilled.

Article 11

1. Any war or threat of war, whether immediately affecting any of ^
Members of the League or not, is hereby declared a matter of concern
whole League, and the League shall lake any action that may be eeme

and effectual to safeguard the peace of nations. In case any such erne
should arise, the Secretary-General shall, on the request of any Mem er o
League, forthwith summon a meeting of the Council. e

2. It is also declared to be the friendly right of each Member oil *
to bring to the attention of the Assembly or of the Council any circurm
whatever affecting international relations which threatens to distur
national peace or the good understanding between nations upon w i P”
depends.

Article 12

1. The Members of the League agree that if there should arise ******£
them any dispute likely to lead to a rupture they will submit e

THE COVENANT OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

decision shall be made within a reasona . r dispute.

Council shall be made within six months after the submission of the duput

Article IS „ . . „

1. ^ Members oi dm League agree -ha-henever £ ***2 »

arise between them whtc hthey be s „i, Ia „orily settled by

arbitration or judicial settlement, ana wn arbitration or

diplomacy, they will submit the whole subject-matter to arbitrat

judicial settlement. question of inter-

2. Disputes as to the interpretation ol a it V„blished, would

national law, as to the existence of any ,u e exten t and

constitute a breach of any international obligatmn.o be

nature oi the reparation to be made lor an, suth breath are dec.

among thorn which ate generally suitable lor subotstmn to

judicial settlement. hg CQUTt tg wh ich the case

3. For the consideration of any such d p , Justice, established

is referred shall be the Permanent Court of w

in accordance with Article 14. or any tubuna

dispute or stipulated in any Convention ext s i g in f u n good

4. The Members of the League agree that the, r will cany ^ ^ not

faith any award or decision that ^ wbich complies therewith,

resort to war against a Member of the 1 * * * 5 * * iwaid or decision, the
In the event of any failure to cany out ^ su effect thereto.

Council shall propose what steps should be take g

The Council shall lomulate and mbmU “ *^“'”^'Jurt M Interna-
for adoption plans for the establishmen determine any

Justice 11 The *»■"»“

dispute oi an op i„iou u£n an, dispute or quest. on

The Court may also give an aavisoiy y
referred to it by the Council or by the Assembly.

1. II there should arise between /SSf settll

to lead to a rupture, **•**■£ , 3 "*^ Members of the League agree that

merit in accordance with Article « to thc dispute may

they will submit the matter to the existence of the dispute to the

effect such submission by givmg "O' neccssary arrangements for a full

Secretary-General, who wi .

investigation and consideration ^ ^ ^ dispute will communicate to the

mvesiigaiion

2. For this purpose, the parue

DS INTO PLOWSHARES

„ promptly ». potriblo. .moment, oi “

*« relevant tact, and paper., and the Council may forthwith direct the pub

I'T-rteCoundl shall endeavour to eltect a settlement of the dispute, and
if such efforts are successful, a statement shall be made pubhe gwms !»
facts and explanations regarding the dispute and the terms of settlement
thereof as the Council may deem appropriate. .

4 If the dispute is not thus settled, the Council either unanimously or oy
a majority vote shall male and publish a report containing a statement o
the facts of the dispute and the recommendations which are deemed ]
and proper in regard thereto. .

5. Any Member of the League represented on the Council may
public a statement of the facts of the dispute and of its conclusions regarding

*6. If a report by the Council is unanimously agreed to by the members
thereof other than the Representatives of one or more of the parties to
dispute, the Members of the League agree that they will rot go to wr «nn ?
party to the dispute which complies with the recommendations of the rep

7. If the Council fails to reach a report which is unanimously agree

by the members thereof, other than the Representatives of one oi _ mow °
the parties to the dispute, the Members of die League reserve to themselves
the right to tale such action as they shall consider necessary for the main-
tenance of right and justice. , .

8. If the dispute between the parties is claimed by one of them, a
found by the Council, to arise out of a matter which by international *
solely within the domestic jurisdiction of that party, the Council snail
report, and shall male no recommendation as to its settlement.

9. The Council may in any case under this article refer the dispute

Assembly. The dispute shall be so referred at the request of either party l
the dispute provided that such request be made within fourteen ays a
the submission of the dispute to the Council. _ .

10. In any case referred to the Assembly, all the provisions of t

and of Article 12 relating to the action and powers of the Council s
apply to the action and powers of the Assembly, provided that a report ma
by the Assembly, if concurred in by the Representatives of those M^n e ” ®
the League represented on the Council and of a majority of t c o
Members of the League, exclusive in each case of the Representatives o
parties to the dispute, shall have the same force as a report by the oun i
concurred in by all the members thereof other than the Representatives o
one or more of the parties to the dispute.

Article 16

1. Should any Member of the League resort to war in disregard of Its
covenants under Articles 12, IS or 15, it shall, ipso facto, be deemed to nav
committed an act of war against all other Members of the League, w i
hereby urdenale immediately to subject it to the severance of *•! ,ra e °

AT ION S

481

THE COVENANT OF THE LEAGUE OF N~.
financial relation,, the prohibition o! all intercour.e between thorn ' national,
and die national, of the Covenant-breaking State, and the P™“>“ f *“
financial, commercial or pmsonal intercom* between i the he

Covenant-breaking State and the national, o£ any other State, whether a
Member of the League or not. m the

2. It shall be the duty of the Council in such case o

several Government, concerned what efiec.ive m.htary, naval or force the
Member, ol the Leagne shall severally contribute to the armed force, to be
used to protect the covenants of the League. mutually

3. The Member, ol the League agree, further, that they will mu.u.lly

•upper, one another in The financial n“ ing

under this article, in order to minimise the lo another in

from die above measure,, and that the, will mutually >»PP»« "

resisting any special measure, aimed at one o t eir d assage

breaking State, and that they will tale the ” ol the LagSe

through dieie territory to die loeees ol any of ^e Member, ol Lo S»
which are cooperating to protect the covenants o covenant of the

4. Any Member ol the League which ha. violated an, , yole
League may be declared to be no longer * ot her Members

of the Council concurred in by the Representatives of
of the League represented thereon.

Article 17

1. In the event ol a dispute between a M'”‘" Statel no fmembers

State which is not a member of the g , . e League shall be in-

of the League, the State or States in the League for the purposes

vited to accept the obligations of membe P n may deem just. If such
of such dispute, upon such conditions as 2 tQ , 6 ; nc i U sive shall be

invitation is accepted, the provisions o necessary by the Council,

applied with such modifications as may s h3ll immediately insti-

2. Upon such invitation being given, .. te and recommend such

tute an enquiry into the circumstances ^ the circumstances.

action as may seem best and most e e - e obligations of member-

3. II a State so invited ■taU'** ° JL„, and dull remrt to war
ship in the League for the P ur P°*” ^’“provisions of Article 16 shall be
against a Member of the Leapi , P acti(>n

applicable as against the State ta i 5 n M j nv jted refuse to accept the

4 It both parties to the d,5 P“ te {or the purposes of such dispute,

obligations of membership m ^ 6 , maVe suc h recommendations as

the Council may taVe such measures a D f the dispute,

will prevent hostilities and will result in tn

AttKle 18 meement entered into hereafter by any

Every treaty or intcrrsational ^tered with the Secret**, a „d

Member of the League shall be to

4g 2 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

»halt, as soon as possible, be published by it. No such treaty or international
engagement shall be binding until so registered.

Article 19

The Assembly may from time to time advise the reconsideration by Mem-
bers of the League of treaties which have become inapplicable and the con-
sideration of international conditions whose continuance might endanger
the peace of the world.

Article 20

1. The Members of the League severally agree that this Covenant is ac-
cepted as abrogating all obligations or understandings inter re * lC a
inconsistent with the terms thereof, and solemnly undertake that ey wi
not hereafter enter into any engagements inconsistent with the terms thereo .

2. In case any Member of the League shall, before becoming a Member
of the League, have undertaken any obligations inconsistent with the *'1™*
of this Covenant, it shall be the duty of such Member to take imme la e
steps to procure its release from such obligations.

Article 21

Nothing in this Covenant shall be deemed to affect the validity of * nt{ *
national engagements, such as treaties of arbitration or regional understan
ings like the Monroe doctrine, for securing the maintenance of peace.

Article 22

1. To those colonies and territories which as a consequence of the late war

have teased to be under the sovereignty of the States which former y 6°
emed them and which are inhabited by peoples not yet able to stan y
themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world, there s ou
be applied the principle that the well-being and development of such peop es
form a sacred trust of civilisation and that securities for the performance o
this trust should be embodied in this Covenant. _

2. The best method of giving practical effect to this principle is that e

tutelage of such peoples should be entrusted to advanced nations^ who. y
reason of their resources, their experience or their geographical position, ran
best undertake this responsibility, and who are willing to accept it, an a
this tutelage should be exercised by them as Mandatories on behalf o e
League. ,

3. The character of the mandate must differ according to the stag® c

development of the people, the geographical situation of the territory,
economic conditions and other similar circumstances. _

4. Certain communities formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire t ve
reached a stage of development where their exivtencc as independent nations
can be provisionally recognised subject to the rendering of administrative a -
vice and assistance by a Mandatory until such time as they are able to stan

483

THE COVENANT OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS
alone. The wishes of these communities must be a principal consideration
in the selection of the Mandatory.

5. Other peoples, especially those of Central Africa, are at such a stage that
the Mandatory must be responsible for the administration of the territory
under conditions which will guarantee freedom of conscience and religion
subject only to the maintenance of public order and morals, the prohibition
of abuses such as the slave trade, the arms traffic and the liquor traffic, and
the prevention of the establishment of fortifications or military and naval
bases and of military training of the natives for other than police purposes
and the defence of territory, and will also secure equal opportunities for the
trade and commerce of other Members of the League.

6. There .re territories. such ,« South We.. Afrtc, and cerum of the

South Pacific Islands, which, owing to the sparsenets of their populat.o 0.0
thei, small sue, or their remoteness Iron, the centres o! dvda.**.. or to
geographical contiguity to the tereitot, ot the Maudatoty. and other ctem
stances, can be best administered under the laws of the Mandatory at
tegral portions of its territory, subject to the safeguards above nteu.toned
the interests of the indigenous population. . r . >unc ;i

7. In every ease of mandate, the Mandatory shall render to Ute Count 1
an annual report in reference to the tctri.or, commuted to us cha je

8. The degree of autho.ity, con.rol or admin, ..ration to

the Mandatory shall, if not previously agreed upon by the Me
League, be explicitly dehned in each ease by the Council. .

9. A permanent Commistion shall be constituted to r „ p

die annual report, of the Mandatories and to advise the Council on
matters relating to the observance of the mandates.

/uncle

Subject to and in aero, dance wid, the pravidons of **^ 1 ™%*
don, existing or hereafter to be agreed upon, the Membee. of the League

(а) will endeavour to secure and ™f! nta,n . uTutehown countries and

labour for men, women and children, industrial relations

in ail countries to whid. their commercial and nduseem
extend, and for that purpose will establish and maintain die

international organisations; Inhabitants of ten!-

(б) undertake to secure just treatment of the native

lories under their control: „,„,rvision over the execu-

<e) will entrust the League with J 1 ' wo men an d children,
tion of agreements with regard to th ,

and the traffic in opium and other dangerous ° ^ tra d e in

(d) will entrust the League with the *. hic h the control of this

arms and ammunition with the countries

traffic is necessary in the common interest, _f communica-

te) will make provhkm to secure and maintain freedom

484

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

and ot transit and nquitabla ttta.ntnn. lor tho
Members of the League. In this connection, the special nec
the regions devastated during the war of 1914-1918 shall be borne i

(0 KtlTcndnvour to talc ttep. in matter, ot international concern tor
the prevention and control of disease.

Article 24

1. There shall be placed under the direction of the Lop* *U

tional bureaux already established by general treaties jt the pa^es ^
treaties consent. All such international bureaux and all ron T“ ™ ^ „ be
regulation of matters of international interest hereafter constituted shall
placed under the direction of the League. reneral

2. In all matters of international interest which are reguta

Conventions but which are not placed under the control of in.erna^l
bureaux or commissions, the Secretariat of the League . distribute
consent of the Council and if desired by the parties, collect mvAihtt* ^
all relevant information and shall render any other assistance which y

necessary or desirable. c.~*nriat the

3. The Council may include as part of the expenses of the SecttttH*
expenses of any bureau or commission which is placed un er
of the League.

Article 25 h ub-

The Members ot the League agree to encourage and V™**? * ^ron

lishment and cooperation of duly authorised voluntary nat.o _„: ent j on
organisation, having as purpose, the improvement of health, he prevention
of disease and the mitigation of fullering throughout the w or .

Article 26 . c

1. Amendment, to this Covenant will tale effect when mu ' ^ .

Members of the League whose Representatives compose lhe . C ° u " C ‘ ^
a majority of the Members of the League whose Representatives co p°

2. No such amendments shall bind any Member of the Lea gu e w h i ch»
rifies its dissent therefrom, but in that case it shall cease to be a ero
the League.

APPENDIX

II The Charter of the
United Nations

We the peoples of the United Nations determined

to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice
lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, ,

to reaffirm faith in fundamcntal hurnaji ri S h« ^ o£ nations

the human person, in the equal rights of men
large and small, and

to establish conditions under tthkh ”lio"aViaVtan be main-

arising tom treatie. and other tonrre. ot tnternattonat

tained, and , , ,

to promote tod., progress and better standard. of » •.

and for these ends

to practice to, trance and the rogether in peace Cd. one another good
neighbors, and . .

to unite our t.rength to tnaintain international peace and «■”* “

. • i and the institution of metnoa*.

to ensure, by the acceptance of pnncip e mon interest, and

that armed force shall not be use , sav econo mic and

to employ international machinery for the promotion
social advancement of all peoples,

have resolved ro combine our efforts to

According.,, our respective 'S’eTfull po«r, Jwj

in the city of San Francisco, who present Charter o

.0 be in good and due '”™- h ’" ,n intemationa, otganiranon »

United Nations and do hereby es

be known as the United Nation*. <8*

486

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

chapter I Purposes and Principles

Article 1

The Purposes of the United Nations are:

1. To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to ta e
effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to
the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches o
the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity wi
the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement o
international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the
peace;

2. To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the
principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to late other
appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;

3. To achieve international cooperation in solving international problems
of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting
and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for
all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and

4. To be a center for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attain-
ment of these common ends.

Article 2

The Organization and its Members, in pursuit of the Purposes stated in
Article 1, shall act in accordance with the following Principles.

1. The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality
of all iis Members.

2. All Members, in order to ensure to all of them the rights and benefits
resulting from membership, shall fulfil in good faith the obligations assumed
by them in accordance with the present Charier.

3. All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means
in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not
endangered.

4. All Members shall refrain in their international relations front the
threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political Inde-
pendence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes
of the United Nations.

5. All Members shall give the United Nations every assistance In any
action it tales in accordance with the present Charter, and shall refrain from
giving assistance to any state against which the United Nations is taling
preventive or enforcement action.

6. The Organization shall ensure that states which are not Members of
the United Nations act in accordance with these Principles so far as may be
necessary for the maintenance of international peace and security.

THE CHARTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS

487

7. Nothing confined in the pre.cn. Charter .ha anthonre ti m United
Nation, to intervene in matter, which am cent, ally “

jurbdic.ion of any ..ate or .hall require the

to settlement under the pre.ent Charter, bn. tht. pnnc.p e mall p.ej
dice the application of enforcement measure* under Chapter vii.

pter II Membership

Article 3 ...

The original Member, of the United Nation, .hall be
having participated in the United Nations n eren ^ Declaration by
Sanitation a. San Francisco, or having prevmu.ly > 8"^ ““““ „ £
United Nation, of January 1, IW2. sign the present Charutr and rat. y
accordance with Article 110.

1. Membership in the United Nations i> open “p^fcharar'and. in

sates Which accept the obligations contain „ot these

the judgment ol the Organitation, are able and willing

obligations. in the United Nations

2. The admission of any such ■*»***. Assembly upon the recommen-
will be effected by a decision of the General Assem y

dation of the Security Council.

A Member of the United Nations against from the

action has been taVen by the Security u j' cl tJie Cenera l Assembly

exercise of the rights and privileges of mem exercise of these

upon the recommendation of the Secunt^ ‘ ^t, Council,
rights and privileges may be restored by

Article 6 . violated the Prin*

A Member of the United Nations which has from the Organta-

ciples contained in the present Charter 7“! ecom mendation of the Security
tion by the General Assembly upon tn
Council.

chapter III Organs

Article 7 . f the United Nations:

1. There are establt.hed a. the principal >nd Social Council,
a General Auembly, a Security Council, an Econo

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARE!

a Trusteeship Council, an International Court of Justice, and a Secretariat.

2. Such subsidiary organs as may be found necessary may be established in
accordance with the present Charter.

Article 8

The United Nations shall place no restrictions on the eligibility of men
and women to participate in any capacity and under conditions of equa ity
in its principal and subsidiary organs.

chapter IV The General Assembly

COMPOSITION
Article 9

1. The General Assembly shall consist of all the Members of the United
Nations.

2. Each Member shall have not more than five representatives in the Gen-
eral Assembly.

FUNCTIONS AND POWERS
Article 10

The General Assembly may discuss any questions or any matters within the
scope of the present Charter or relating to the powers and functions of any
organs provided for in the present Charter, and, except as provided in Ar-
ticle 12, may male recommendations to the Members of the United Nations
or to the Security Council or to both on any such questions or matters.

Article 11

1. The General Assembly may consider the general principles of coopera-
tion in the maintenance of international peace and security, including the
principles governing disarmament and the regulation of armaments, an
may male recommendations with regard to such principles to the Members

or to the Security Council or to both.

2. The General Assembly may discuss any questions relating to the main-
tenance of international peace and security brought before it by any Mem-
ber of the United Nations, or by the Security Council, or by a state which
is not a Member of the United Nations in accordance with Article 35, para-

graph 2, and, except as provided In Article 12, may male recommendations
with regard to any such questions to the state or states concerned or to the
Security Council or to both. Any such question on which action is necessary
shall be referred to the Security Council by the General Assembly either
before or after discussion.

489

THECHARTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS

S. The General Atrembly may call .he attention of the Security Conndl

to situations which are likely to endanger in,erna,,onal ,«te >nd mcu, 7 .

4. The powers of the Geneml Assembly set ford, to tins Arnde shall
limit the general scope of Article 10.

Article 12

1. While the Security Council is exercising in res | >e f t . General

situation the functions assigned to it m the presen ' d j spu i e

Assembly shall not make any recommendations with regard to that P

or situation unless the Security Council so request* Council, shall

2. The Secretary-General, with the consent of the Security Gounc ^ ^

notify the General Assembly at each session o an y ™ ^ . dfa i t w ; t h

maintenance of international peace and security w Assembly, or

by the Security Council and shall similarly notify f ^ ^

the Members of the United Nations if the General As^blyis not «n

sbn, immediately the Security Council ceases to deal w.th such matters.
Article IS

1. The Geneml Attembly .hell initiate ttudle. ,nd muk. teeomntendttton,

for the purpose of: political field and encour-

a. promoting international cooperation in P" . . codification;

Hint dte pto^etti.e development ol “‘I’” ” £ |L>. eultuml.

b. promoting international cooperation in .ealimtion of human

educational, and health held., and att.tt.ng in » te*.

right* and lundamental freedom, lor all widmui dttltntuon

language, or religion. . 0 f the General As

2. The further responsibilities, functio . P° above are set

sembly with respect to matters mentioned in p3

forth in Chapters IX and X.

Subject to the provisions of Article 12. the Jtion /reganil«s of

mend measures for the peaceful adjustment or friendly rela-
origin. >.hich it deems likely to impair e . frorn a Eolation of the
dons among nations, including situation purposes and Principles

provisions of the present Charter setting forth the Purpo
of the United Nations.

Article 15 . d medal

1. The General Assembly »haU receive * n Xde an account

rtporu from the Security Council: ***** decided upon or taken to

ci the measures that the Security Council M

maintain international peace and security. reports from ** ot “ er

!- The Geneml Auembly th*U reeei.e .»d ccn..der tepc
organs of the United Nations.

490

SWORDS

NTO PLOWSHARES

Article 16

The General Assembly shall perform such functions with respect to the
international trusteeship system as are assigned to it under Chap ten an

XIII, including the approval of the trusteeship agreements for areas no
designated as strategic.

Article 17

1. The General Assembly shall consider and approve the budget of the
Organization.

2. The expense* of the Organisation shall be borne by the Members as

apportioned by the General Assembly. _

3. The General Assembly shall consider and approve any financial an
budgetary arrangements with specialized agencies referred to in Aruc e
and shall examine the administrative budgets of such specialized agencies
with a view to making recommendations to the agencies concerned.

VOTING
Article 18

1. Each member of the General Assembly shall have one vote.

2. Decisions of the General Assembly on important questions shall c

made by a two-thirds majority of the members present and voting. These
questions shall include: recommendations with respect to the maintenance
of international peace and security, the election of the non-permanent mem-
bers of the Security Council, the election of the members of the Economic
and Social Council, the election of members of the Trusteeship Council in
accordance with paragraph 1 (c) of Article 86, the admission of new Mem-
bers to the United Nations, the suspension of the rights and privileges o
membership, the expulsion of Members, questions relating to the operation
of the trusteeship system, and budgetary questions. _ . .

3. Decisions on other questions, including the determination of additiona
categories of questions to be decided by a two thirds majority, shall be mad*
by a majority of the members present and voting.

Article 19

A Member of the United Nations which is in arrears In the payment of
its financial contributions to the Organization shall have no vote in use
General Assembly if the amount of its arrears equals or exceeds the amount
of the contributions due from it for the preceding two full years. The Gen-
eral Assembly may, nevertheless, permit such a Member to vote if it 15 53 1 ‘*’
fied that the failure to pay is due to conditions beyond the control of e
Member.

THE CHARTER O

IF THE UNITED NATIONS

491

PROCEDURE

Article 20 . .

Th= General Areembly .hall .^TS? i »»™V«d

ZX o, £e Security Council or o£ a -

jority of the Members of the United Nations.

Article 21

The General Assembly shall adopt its own
elect its President for each session.

rules of

procedure. It shall

Article 22

The General A.rembl, nay e.tabli.h .uch .nb.idia^ «E»"*
necessary for the performance of its functions.

chapter V The Security CouneU

COMPOSITION

A* 1 * 1 ' 23 . umiSm of the United

I. The Security Council shall consist . ^"ion of Soviet Socialist Re-
Nations. The Republic of Ch,n *’ J”" nriuin and Northern Ireland, and
publics, the United Kingdom of Grea ent mein bers of the Security

the United States of America shall be p Members of the United

Council. The Ceneral Assembly shall e Council, due regard

Nations to be non-permanent membe contribution of Members of

being specially paid, in the lint ,n5 “" f international peace and
the United Nations to die tnaintenan^ of^.n ^ ^ ^ „ pliable get,
and to the other purposes of c ,

graphical distribution. , . Security Council shall e ec

2. The nonpennoren. uou-pennanen. members

for a ,™ „l L yean. In .be t « A re„nn C member

however, three sliall be chosen o . ion _

shall not be eligible for immedia e lhll i hate one representative.

3. EadimemLr of the Secunty Councils

FUNCTIONS AND POV»£R

Ankle U a «wn by the Untied Nations,

1. In order m en.ore primary rmpomibiluy lor dm

its Members confer on the

492

SWORDS INTO FLO

maintenance of international peace and security, and agree that in

out its duties under this responsibility the Security Council acts on their

2. In discharging these duties the Security Council shall act in
with the Purposes and Principles of the United Nations. The specs c p
granted to the Security Council for the discharge of these duties are
down in Chapters VI. VII. VIII, and XII. . .

S. The Security Council shall submit annual and, when necessary, p
reports to the General Assembly for its consideration.

Article 25

The Members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out e
decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the present Chart .

In order to promote the establishment and maintenance

of international

peace and security with the least diversion for armaments of the w
human and economic resources, the Security Council shall be responsi
for formulating, with the assistance of the Military Staff Committee re
to in Article 47, plans to be submitted to the Members of the United Na
tot the establishment of a system for the regulation of armaments.

VOTING
Article 27

1. Each member of the Security Council shall have one vote. ^

2 Decisions of the Security Council on procedural matters shall e ®a
by an affirmative vote of seven members. .

3. Decisions of the Security Council on all other matters shall be ma e
an affirmative vote of seven members including the concurring votes o
permanent members; provided that, in decisions under Chapter ’
under paragraph 3 of Article 52, a party to a dispute shall abstain r
voting.

PROCEDURE
Article 28

1. The Security Council shall be so organiied as to be able to function

continuously. Each member of the Security Council shall for this purpo
be represented at all times at the seat of the Organization. u f its

2. The Security Council shall hold periodic meetings at which ea o ^
members may, if it so desires, be represented by a member of the gov
ment or by some other specially designated representative.

THE CHARTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS

hold meetings at such places

judgment will best facilitate its

3. The Security Council may h
the seat of the Organiration as in 1

493

than

work.

Article 29 . j.pms

The Security Council may ct.blUh such subsidias, ovgass. -
necessary for the performance of its functions.

A TbI Security Counci, shall adopt it. own cole. o. pcoceduce, in«n 8
the method of selecting its President.

Article 31 ^ Security

Any Member of the United Nations which » "f any question
Council may participate, without vote, in latter considers that the

brousht before the Security Council whenever the latter
interests of that Member are specially a ecte

Afdde 32 member of the Secu-

Any Member of the United Nations wttch » { ^ Unite<1 Nation s, if

rity Council or any state which is not a Security Council, shall

h is a party to a dispute under renting to the dis-

be invited to participate, without vo , conditions as it deems just

pute. The SriLby Council shall Member 0, dse United N-

for the participation of a state which is not
tions.

chapter VI Pacific Settlement of D.sputes

Article 33 . ^ich is likely to en-

1. The parties to any dispute, the s hall, first of

danger the maintenance of internatio P at ion, conciliation, ar 1 ra
all. seek a solution by negotiation, or arrangements, or

turn, judicial settlement, resort to «P onal g

other peaceful means of their own choice. necessaiy , call upon the

2. The Security Council shall. «»«
parties to settle their dispute by su

Article 34

„ r an v situation which

T dl, P ute ‘ . l in order to de-

The Security Council may ,n . e r j se to a dispute, in “““

might lead to international InC *“ > , the jjjpute or situation u 1

terroine whether the continuan peace and security,

danger the maintenance of > nte

494

.WORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

Article 55

1. Any Member of Ihe United Nation! may bring any dispute, or any situa-
tion o! the nature referred to in Article M, to the attention of the Security
Council or of the General Assembly. .

2 A state which is not a Member of the United Nat.ons may bring to tfte
attention of the Security Council or of the General Assembly any dispute
to which it is a party if it accepts in advance, for the purposes of the m*
pute, the obligations of pacific settlement provided in the present L. •

3. The proceedings of the General Assembly in respect of matters ra»S
to its attention under this Article will be subject to the provisions ot Article.
11 and 12.

Article 36

1. The Security Council may, at any stage of a dispute of the nature re-
ferred to in Article 33 ot of a situation of like nature, recommend appro-
priate procedures or methods of adjustment.

2. The Security Council should take into consideration any proce u

for the settlement of the dispute which have already been adopted by t e
parties. „

3. In making recommendations under this Article the Security u
should also take into consideration that legal disputes should as a genera
rule be referred by the parties to the International Court of Justice in ac-
cordance with the provisions of the Statute of the Court.

Article 37

1. Should the parties to a dispute of the nature referred to in Article 33

fail to settle it by the means indicated in that Article, they shall refer it
the Security Council. . .

2. It the Security Council deems that the continuance of the dispute is
in fact likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and se
rity, it shall decide whether to take action under Article 36 or to recoin
mend such terms of settlement as it may consider appropriate.

Article 38

Without prejudice to the provisions of Articles S3 to 37, the Secunty
Council may, iE all the parties to any dispute so request, make recommen a
lions to the parties with a view to a pacific settlement of the dispute.

THE CHARTER OF

THE UNITED NATIONS

495

CHAPTER VII Action with Respect to Threats to the
Peace, Breaches o! the Peace, and Acts of Aggression

Article 39 .

The Security Council shall determine
peace, breach!,. , he peace, or act of a^eooon Article,

dations. or decide what measures shall be taken .

41 and 42. to maintain or restore international pea

Article 40 . . -t

In order to prevent an aggravation ot the *' ^“Je’measttret

nay. be.ore noting the reconmendatoor decrfmg^^p ^

provided tor in Article S3. call' „^ iS a„ or desirable. Such provi-
such provisional measures as it deems jY c ] a ; mS( or position

sional measures shall be without prejudice ■ acc0 unt o£

ol the parties concerned. The Security Council shall duly take
failure to comply with such provisional measures.

The Security Council may decide^ measures u may

may include complete or partial in terns pt 10 £ commU nication,

rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means
and the severance of diplomatic relations.

Article 42 ... . . in Article

Should the Security Council “"nadequ^! it may take such

41 would be inadequate or have p necessary to maintain or restore

action by air, sea, or land forces as may include demonstrations,

international peace and security. Su * ]an£ j f orc es of Members of the
blockade, and other operations by air, se .

United Nations.

Article 43 . . to contribute to the main-

1. All Members of the United Nat, °" ’. un( jertake to make available to
tenance of international P““ “”«»rdanc e whb » •!**> *5““'"
the Security Council, on its call an facilities, including rights of

, agreement,. armed ^“"“."ining international peace and

asKKPc. necessary for the purpose o

passage, necessary for the purpose

security.

2. Such agreement or ag«

shall govern the numbers and types of

SWORDS

NTO PLOWSHARES

L. to d tE ™ ot readiness and general Incadon. and d,e na.ure o. d.e
facilities and assistance to be provided. soon „ Hib le

Sates in accordance with their respective consumuonal processes.

When the Security Council has decided to use force U d»! e ^ n fulfillment
upon a Member not represented on ,t to provide a™ ed force: « if Ae
of the obligations assumed under Article 43 invite that M dI

Member so desires, to participate in the farces,

concerning the employment of contingents of that Member

In order to enable the United Nations to take urgent miliU^measures.
Members shall hold immediately available national air-force "8
combined international enforcement action. The $ue "* . shall b e

readiness of these contingents and plans for their combine ^

determined, within the limits Uid down in the special agT MisUn ce

ment, referred to tn Article 43. by the Security Council with the ass.sta
of the Military Stall Committee.

Plans for the application of armed force shall be made by the
Council with the assistance of the Military Staff Committee.

Article 47 . an( j

1. There shall be established a Military Staff Committee to a v ^
assist the Security Council on all questions relating to the Securi y ^
military requirements for the maintenance of international peace a ^ ^
rity, the employment and command of forces placed at its isposa ,

ulation oE armaments, and possible disarmament. (j, e

2. The Military Staff Committee shall consist of the Chiefs o
permanent members of the Security Council or their representa Q, m .

Member of the United Nations not permanently represented on ^

Member of the United IN at ions not permanently . . eR jj, e

mittee shall be invited by the Committee to be associated wit tt att ; c jpa-
efficient discharge of the Committee’s responsibilities requires e p
tion of that Member in its woTk. c»rurity

tion ot Uiat ftiemoer in ns worn. Security

3. The Military Staff Committee shall be responsible under tn ^ ^

Council for the strategic direction of any armed forces placed at e { orce s

Council tor the strategic direction oi any armeu r- — forces

of the Security Council. Questions relating to the command o su

shall be worked out subsequently. , . . . security

4. The Military Staff Committee, with the authorization o es tab-

Council and after consultation with appropriate regional agencies, may
lish regional subcommittees.

THE CHARTER OF T!

•HE UNITED NATIONS

497

Article 48

The -action 1,

S ^ZZTthe U»S NationT - b, — «< — . - - *-*
eouncil may ^ „( ,he United Nation.

2. Snchdccntm. .ball bo earned on, By ^ ionll Ige „cie.

directly and through their action in th pp P
o£ which they are members.

Article 49 ,

The Member, ol the United N>,ioo ““' ^ Security &undb

si.tance in carrying out the mea.ures deeded upon oy

Article 50 . , ,

II preventive or Mmbm o" the United Nadon.

Security Council, any other s a . cnecial economic problems arising

or not which finds «Z » consult th!

from the carrying out ol those me problems.

Security Council with regard to a solution of those problem

At,!tle M - Ttpr shall impair the inherent right of indl-

Nothing in the pwj an anned P a ttack occurs against a Member

vidual or collective self-defense . council has taken the measures

of the United Nations, until J and secUT i t y. Measures taken by

necessary to maintain internal P sel[ . de f ense shall be immediately
Members in the exercise of » 8 j n a ny way affect the au-

repotted to the Security ^““ siurity Soodi codes’ the pre.eu. Ch.„„
thority and responsibility of t I necessary in order to maintain

to take at any time such action
or restore international peace an sec

pter VIII Region' Arrangements

Arft, ' K V .ent Charter ptecludes the existence of regi ona j

>• Nothing iu the ptetent ^ relattng to ft,

rangements or agencies f sreurity as are appropriate f or f .

nance of international P«« ***££'* agend „ and their '

action, provided that such xen 8™ • j ts 0 [ the United Nati 0rii We
consistent with the Purposes an . entering into such arr,,,

or^^t^-eeve.e^.0^^

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

ment oi loci disputt, through such «S»™1 “ by ‘”‘ h

gional agtncio before referring then, to rf dSc

3. The Security Council shall encourage rraneements P or by with

ment oi local dispute, through such regional E rf or b ,

regional agencies either on the .mtratr.e ol the states conce

T C TSmcle?™ «ay ta'p'ait* the application oi Article. 34 and 33-
TThe Security Council shall, where appropriate.

arrangement. or agencies tor enforcement action under rts author, y^ ^
enforcement action shall be taken under regional *e

gional agencies without the authonmnon of the Secunty^ ^p, pl , 2
exception of measures against any enemy sta , , . , arr ange-

of this Article, provided For pursuant to Article 107 or in g such

ments directed aga.nst renewal of aggressive policy on the pa
state, until such time as the Orgamtation may, cm req . further

menu concerned, be charged with the responsibility for prevent g
aggression by such a state. applies to

2 The term “enemy state" as used in paragraph l of this Art PP
any state which during the Second World War has been an
signatory of the present Charter.

Article 54 . .

The Security Council shall at all times be kept fully informed ®*
undertaken or in contemplation under regional arrangements or y
agencies for the maintenance of international peace and security.

chapter IX International Economic and Social
Cooperation

Article 55 ^ ^ ^

With a view to the creation of conditions of stability and well-being w^
are necessary for peaceful and friendly relations among nations > se ^
respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination o p eo P

the United Nations shall promote: ; c

a. higher standards of living, full employment, and conditions o econo

and social progress and development:

b. solutions of international economic, social, health, and relat P
lems; and international cultural and educational cooperation; and
>:. universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fun .

sex, language, or religion.

freedoms for all without distinction a

THE CHARTER OF

THE UNITED NATIONS

499

Article 56 ,

All Members pledge themselves to take joint ^ xt
operation with the Organuatton for the achievement y i~

forth in Article 55.

Article 57 ,

1. The various specialised agenciea, W

“ * nd ha ™s wide h ” i,h - a " d " ht ' d

ssfu" * - «— »— * -

cordance with the provisions of Article 63. United Nations

2. Such agencies thus brought into relat.omh.p avath the
In hereinafter referred to as speeialirad agencies.

Article 58 . „r ,1,.

The Organisation sh.li n»U recommendation, for die coordination
policies and activities of the specialized agencies.

‘The Organisation .hall, where appropriate, MUM
the state, learned for the creation of ^
fot the accomplishment of the purposes se

Responsibility lor the discharge of the “S under

forth ta this Chapter shall be vested In Social Council,

the authority of the General Assembly, *' " 0 THp.e. X.
which shall have for this purpose the powers set

CHAPTER X

The Economic and Social Council

COMPOSITION

*"‘ d ' 61 ■ „d Social Council shall consist of eigh.ren Members of

1. The Economic and 5ocia c m , Assembly.

the United Nations elected by ^ 5 iix m emb en of the Economic

2. Subject .0 die eS year for a . mm of dune yearn A

and Social Council shall immediate r«l«t»on.

retiring member shall be eligi 0 f the Economic and Social Coun-

3. At the first election, eighteen membcno ^ ^ thwn « P ire

cil shall be chosen. The «** ® ! members at the end of two years,

at the end of one year. * n made by the General Assembly.

in accordance with arrangements ma

500 SWORDS ,»TO PLOWSHARES

4. Each mmub., ol the Economic and Sochi Council shall have one mp-
resentative.

FUNCTIONS AND POWERS
1 The Economic and Social Council educational.

reports with respect to international economy, social. ^Itura^,^ w

health, and related matters and may make tec . , b of ,he United
any such matters to the General Assembly, to the Members
Nations, and to the specialised agencies concerned. rt for ,

2. It may mate recommendations for the purpose of P

and observance of. human rights and fundamental '**»££* Assen ,
J. It may prepare draft comentions for subm.ssion to the Cenera. a
bly, with respect to matters falling within its competency

4 It may call, in accordance with the rules prescribed by the ««
Nations, international conferences on matters falling within ts I*

Article 65

1. Tta Economic .nd Soci.l Council may cn.ci inlo lh ,

ol lh. agenciet r.l.md lo In Anicte 57 d.fmmg the .torn. ™ f io „,
agency concerned .hall b. brought into rclal.on.b.p with U ”“'

“1 b. Subject to appeal b, J'””’ *“™ „gb

2. It may coordinate the activiite. ol the tpecialtied

tultation with and recommendation, tn tuch agendet and g

mrndation. tn die General Atwmbl, and lo the Mtmber. ol the W
Nations.

Article 64 ^

1. The Economic and Social Council may take appropriate »tep» ' “ '
tain regular reports from the specialized agencies. It may make

with the Members of the United Nations and with the specialize 8
to obtain reports on the steps taken to give effect to its own reco
tions and to recommendations on matters falling within its competen
by the General Assembly. General

2. It may communicate its observations on these reports to
Assembly.

Article 65

The Economic and Social Council may furnish information to the
rity Council and shall assist the Security Council upon its request.

Article 66

1. The Economic and Social Council shall perform such functiims a * ^
within its competence in connection with the carrying out o e r
mendations of the General Assembly.

THE CHARTER OF THE UNITED NATION.

501

2. It may, with the approval of the General Assembly, perform services at
the request of Members of the United Nations and at the request of spe
dalized agencies.

3. It shall perform such other functions as arc specified elsewhere in the
present Charter or as may be assigned to it by the General Assembly.

VOTING
Article 67

1. Each member of the Economic and Social Council shall have one vote.

2. Decisions of the Economic and Social Council shall be made by a ma-
jority of the members present and voting.

PROCEDURE
Article 68

The Economic and Social Council sliall sec up commissions in economic
and social Held. and foe che promocion oi human nglur. and such oilier
commisaions as may be required ior the perlormance oi Ur tunetiom.

Article 69

The Economic and Social Council shall in.i.e an, Member oi , he Uniied
Nationr ro pariieipare. wirhou. vore. in it. deliberations on an, ma„e, „[
particular concern to that Member.

Article 70

The Economic and Social Council ma, male
ri.es oi rhe specialised agencies ro “.id ior to

.ion, and in .hose oi . he ,* qidaiired .gender

tentative! to participate in the tleliocrano

Article 71

. „ . , male suitable arrangements for

The Economic and OI gantoiion, nbich arc concerned vi*

con.ul.aUon with ma, be made with in*,

mauern w.dnn compe.enee. Sm h ra , ion ,l organic,*,,

SSS ^Member oT die Un.red Na.ion. concerned.
Economic and Soria. Connell "" """ »

cedure. including the method of re eetmli ^ a , required in accordant.

-i*^„“i^l?^lude“pn,.hio,, lor * -mening o. „„* p
on ihe request oi a majorit, of memben.

502

SWORDS INTO

plowshares

chapter XI Declaration Regarding Non-Self-Goveming
Territories

Member, .1 the United Unions »hkh «’ i»“

the administration ,e l“t™t",hrnrteipk'th”'r< in.ete.n

inhabitants of these territories, and. w th.send concern^

a. to ensure. with due respect ** H

their political, economic, social, and education*

treatment, and their protection against a ™ ses ' { Ae political aspira-

b to develop self government to Uke dueaccnuntom 0

tionsof the peoples, and to assist them . » » £■ 1 F«SX circumstance. of
their free political institutions, according P advan cement;

each territory and its peoples and their varying s g

c. to further international peace and security; encourage re-

d. to promote constructive measures of develop • appropriate.

March, and to cooperate with one another and, when * achit ,ement

with specialized international bodies with a view to th p * Anicle: and
of the social, economic, and scientific purposes set or ; on purposes.

e. to transmit regularly to the Secretary-Genera considerations may

subject to such limitation as security and constitutions co , 0

require, statistical and other information of a teehnica ^ wb j c h they
economic, social, and educational conditions in the tern chapter*

are respectively responsible other than those territories to

XII and XIII apply.

Article 74 ^ 0 [

Members of the United Nations also agree that their , 0 f their

the territories to which this Chapter applies, no less than i r neJgh bor
metropolitan areas, must be based on the general pnnop “ tbc oE
lines*, due account being taken of the interests and well t>e b
the world, in social, economic, and commercial matters.

THE C!

RTE1 OF THE UNITED NATIONS

chapter XII International Trusteeship System

Article 75

The United Nations shall establish under ita authority an
trusteeship system lor the administration and supersumn o£ sud, terrhorie.
as may he placed thereunder b, suluequen. individual asrccment. These
territories are hereinafter referred to as trust territories

Article 76 ,

The basic objectives of .he trustee^,, syren, in aerorda not u uthj^
Purposes of the United Nations laid down in Article 1 of p
shall be:

a. to further international peace and seeuruyi ^

b. to promote the political, econom , ■ progressive de-
ment of the inhabitants of the trust as may be appropriate

'elopment towards self-government or in «P and j[s peop i es and the

to the particular circumstances of eac *7 b e rov ;d e{ i

freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned, anti y

by the terms of each trusteeship agreement, fumIarne ntal freedoms

c to encourage respect for human right* anct ^ and w

for all without distinction as to race, peoples of the world;

encourage recognition of the interdependence of the p P
and . • i , mnn raic and commercial matters

d. to ensure equal treatment in social. 'nationals, and also equal

for all Members of the United Nations a justice, without prejudice

treatment for the latter in the admimstra subject to the provisions

to the attainment of the foregoing o jec iv
of Anicle 80.

A ' dd ' 77 hlU such terri.ories in the Mluuiug

1. The trusteeship system snail app i { trusteeship agreements:

categories as may be placed thereunder by mea

a. territories now held under maudare; „ a result oi the

b territories uhi.h may be de.ached hum y
•Second World War; and tein b y states responsible f or

c. territories voluntarily place un

•heir administration. agreement as to which territories in

2. It will be a matter for subseque ^ trustecsh ip system and

the foregoing categories will be ro g

upon what terms

SWOIIOS 1»’» n-OWSHAHIl

Article 78 territories which have become

» — D — « «»>* « *■ ^

Arlic1 ' 78 t be bliced under the muiee-

The terms trusteeship j° eu'.^taU be .peed upon W

ship system, including any alteral o d , , y power in the case of

the* states directly concerned '"“7 Kited N.tions, and

territories held undeT mandate by a Mem
sS be approved a. provided for in Arrtcle. 85 and 85.

Te “p. a. may be .peed »p»n in individna,

made under Article, 17, 78, and 81, l> b ™ S d „ld. nothing i« f

drip system, and until such l ^ the ngH»

chapte. shall be cou, trued ,n or of well »> eating fn.e.n.t.on‘1

Nation, may

Tr'ampaph . of this A, side shall not be

for delay or postponement of the negotiation a d htp system as

for placing mandated and other territories under the tru
provided for in Article 77.

Article M . the terms under

The trusteeship agreement shall in each case “ the authority

which the trust territory will be administered an 5 ^ authority,

which will exercise the administration of the trus states or

hereinafter called the administering authority, may
the Organization itself.

Article 82 strategic area

There may be designated, in any trusteeship «gr»MJ • wh j £ h the
or areas which may include part or all of the trust e or agreements
agreement applies, without prejudice to any special agree
made under Article 43.

Article 83 . areaJ including

1. All functions of the United Nations relating to strategic ^ a i te ia-
the approval of the terms of the trusteeship agreements
tion or amendment, shall be exercised by the Security lica b!e to

2 The basic objectives set forth in Article 76 shall VY
people of each strategic area

505

THE C II ART Lit OF THE UNITED NATION stees hin

3. The Security Council shall, subject to the J^j^ons, avail itself of
agreements and without prejudice to se ^ ur j orm those functions of the
the assistance of the Trusteeship Council to P political, economic,

United Nations under the trusteeship system r ^
social, and educational matters in the strategi

AltiC,C ^ • .horiiv to ensure that the trust

It shall be the duty of the administering au ' nternationa i peace and
territory shall play its part in the y ma ke use of volunteer

security. To this end the administering authomy, ^ carrying out the

forces, facilities, and assistance from t e tr . ; n this regard by the

obligations towards the Security Counci u an d the maintenance

administering authority, as well as or o
of law and order within the trust territory-

Anide 85 d ((> truste esh. P agree-

1 The functions of the United j nc ,5i„g the *PP ro,>1 °‘

ments for all areas not designated as stra eg alterat ion or amendment,

terms of the trusteeship agreements an

shall be exercised by the General Assem y- authority of the Gen-

2. The Trusteeship Council, operaung jnder ou t these func -

ml Assembly, shall assist she General Assembly
tions.

[After XIII The Trusteeship Council

COMPOSITION

Article ES ... f 0 Uo»M; Members of the

1. The Trusteeship Council shal'»»” ,0f "

United Nations: . territories; . , r „

a. those Member, administermg by •" ArUC "

b. such of those Member, meuuoned

administering trust ” K ,,d for "'"^'“jTumbn of members

c. as many other ensure that r = Memben of

AuembI, as may be "r“ “n div.ded •«« ^ %hJ<h do ^

of the Trusteeship Co “" c “ ini ’,er trust ''"”", d ,, innate one specially
the United Nations which a - council shall 8

2. Each member of die "
qualified person to represen

SWORDS

NTO PLOWSHARE*

50G

FUNCTIONS AND POWERS

Article 87 _ , •>

Tta General Asatmb!, and. unde, is. an.hnri,,. the T„t,.«sh,p Conned,
in rarrvinc out their functions, may:

, reports submitted bj the administcr.ns an.hon J

b accept pet, t, on, and esamine them in consults!, on »,* Be

“tVSTS Periodic .hit. - the respective tens, territories a. ti»»
agreed upon with the administering authority: and

d tale these and other actions in conformity w.dt the terms of the tn.
ship agreements.

Article 8S

Tiie Trusteeship Council shall formulate a queuionnaire on^ po
economic, social, and educational advancement of the . ,n ^ Uor v within
trust territory and the administering authority for each mist >7 ^

the competence of the Ceneral Assembly shall male an annual po
General Assembly upon the basis of such questionnaire.

VOTING
Article 89

1 Each member of the Trusteeship Council shall have one vot '_ . r ;, y 0 f
2. Decisions of the Trusteeship Council shall be made by a J
the members present and toting

PROCEDURE
Article 90

1. The Trusteeship Council shall adopt its own rules of procedu
eluding the method of selecting its President. dance with

2 The Trusteeship Council shall meet as required in a< * t * . et i n gs on
its rules, which shall include provision for the convening o
the request of a majority of its members

Article 91 assist-

The Trusteeship Council shall, when appropriate, avail enc ies in

anee of the Economic and Social Council and of the specia ire
regard to matters with which they are respectively conceme

THE CHARTER OF THE

UNITED NATIONS

507

CHAPTER XIV The International Court of Justice

. . ... sh ..| be the principal judicial organ of
The International Court o Ju accordance with the annexed Stat-

to Uni.ed Nations. It o" S Prtntanrn, Cons, o.

me. »h,ch it based upon the Stat , te „t chaner.

tional Justice and fomw an integral pa

Article 95 .10

1. All Members o. the United Nation, me P™ » <* ■«-

of the International Court of J ust ‘ ce ‘ , . Unite d Nations may become a

2. A state which is not a Mem c t of justice on conditions to

party to the Statute of the Interna Assembly upon the recommen-

he determined in each case by the e

dation of the Security Council

Article 94

1. Eath Member o! the in any cate

decision o[ the International Co J

, ... the obligation* incumbent upon

“ ”t to the Court, the other part, may bate re-

. i»o 6 ,d ?* „M, h may. il h dentil necessary. male reton,.

course to the Security Council, ^ taken to g»' e f ^ fct ’° ‘he j“dg-

mendatiom or decide upon measures

comply with the
liicli it it a

party.

2. If any party

Anit,c 95 .. . )rC vent Members of the United

Nothing in the present Chmter * ( bcir differences to other tribunal,
Nations from entrusting the ” or * hic h may be concluded i„

by sirtue of agreements already m « Btcn
the future

‘"Me 31 , council ma, re,oes. Ute Inter.

1. Tlie Genetal Assembly 1,1 , ;ry opinion on any legal i SUCKian.
nation,, Coon ol Jutthe •" and .periali.ri agentaes, , kId>

= Other organs ol the “^^hTcneml A«mbly. ■>*> *qt««
ma, a, an, time be m authortretl ^ .ruing •«>■■■> the «»p, oI

advisory opinion* of the C° urt ° n
their act nines.

50S

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

chapter XV The Secretariat

Article 97

The Secretariat shall comprise a Secretary General and such staff as the
Organization may require. The Secretary General shall be appointed by e
General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council. He
shall be the chief administratise officer of the Organization.

Article 98

1 he Secretary-General shall act in that capacity in all meetings of the
General Assembly, of the Security Council, of the Economic and Social Coun-
cil, and of the Trusteeship Council, and shall perform such oilier functions
as arc entrusted to him by these organs. The Secretary-General shall m» c
an annual report to the General Assembly on the work of the Organization

Article 99

The Secretary-General may bring to the attention of the Security Council
any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of inter-
national peace and security.

Article 100

1. In the performance of their duties the Secretary-General and the staff
shall not seek or receive instructions from any government or from any
other authority external to the Organization. They shall refrain from any
action which might reflect on their position as international officials respon-
sible only to the Organization.

2. Each Member of the United Nations undertakes to respect the exclu-
sively international character of the responsibilities of the Secretary-Genera
and the staff and not to seek to influence them in the discharge of their
responsibilities

Article 101

1. The staff shall be appointed by the Secretary-General under regulations
established by the General Assembly.

2. Appropriate staffs shall be permanently assigned to the Economic and
Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, and, as required, to other organs
of the United Nations. These staffs shall form a part of the Secretariat.

5. The paramount consideration in the employment of the staff and in
the determination of the conditions of service shall be the necessity of secur-
ing the highest standards of efliciency, competence, and integrity. Due regard
shall be paid to the importance of recruiting the staff on as wide a geo-
graphical basis as possible.

SWORDS INTO Pt.

chapter XV The Secretariat

Article 97 .

The Secretariat shill comprise a Secretary General anti such staff as the
Organization may require. The Secretary General shall he appointed by the
General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council. He
shall be the chief administrative officer of the Organization.

Article 98

The Secretary General shall act in that capacity in all meetings of the
General Assembly, of the Security Council, of the Economic and Social Coun-
cil, and of tire Trusteeship Council, and shall perform such other functions
as arc entrusted to him by these organs The Secretary-General shall mate
an annual report to the General Assembly on the svort of the Organization.

Article 99

The SecTcta ry-General may bring to the attention of the Security Council
any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of inter-
national peace and security.

Article 100

1. In the performance of their duties the Secretary -General and the staff
shall not seek or receive instructions from any government or from any
other authority external to the Organization. They shall refrain from any
action which might reflect on their position as international officials respon-
sible only to the Organization.

2. Each Member of the United Nations undertakes to respect the exclu-
sively international character of the responsibilities of the Secretary General
and the staff and not to seek to influence them in the discharge of their
responsibilities

Article 101

1. The staff shall be appointed by the Secretary General under regulations
established by the General Assembly.

2 Appropriate staffs shall be permanently assigned to the Economic and
Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, and, as required, to other organs
of the United Nations. These staffs shall form a part of the Secretariat.

3. The paramount consideration in the employment of the staff and in
the determination of the conditions of service shall be the necessity of secur-
ing the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity. Due regard
shall be paid to the importance of recruiting the staff on as wide a geo-
graphical basis as possible.

THE CHARTER OP THE UNITED NATIONS

500

chapter XVI Miscellaneous Provisions

Article 102

1- Every treaty and every international agreement entered into by any
Member ot the United Nations after the present Charter comes into force
dull as soon as possible be registered with the Secretariat and published
by it.

2. No pany to any such treaty or international agreement which has not
«cn registered in accordance with the provisions of paragraph 1 of this
rticle may invoke that treaty or agreement before any organ of the United
Nations

Article 103

In the event of a conflict between the obligations of the Members of the
United Nations under the present Charter and their obligations under any
°«ler international agreement, their obligation* under the present Charter
shall prevail.

Article 104
The Organiration .tell enjoy in «
legal Qpa *y a. «“» b ' ‘

fulfillment of its putpO'*'

dele 105 j(1 , he territory ot each ot t,» w

1. The Organlra'ion - Jir iteterrary lor the t™?'"

:h privilege. a»d i®”»" , ‘ , “ .

irpoiei. , . Member, ol *e United Nation.. ndoisaa,,^

2 R,p,e.en U .he. oi *« ,„ch privilege. •” d -re

e Organimion .hall ’Z oi dreir fnn«on. m »ooee,„„ „„„

rceuar, ior the indepen e „„dation> *1* * vie» ,o

ie Organisation. make recom hJ 1 and 2 of th.,

!. The General Aj, rm T I piitation oi 1^^ United Nation,
...mining the detail. „ , M Member,

article or L, p.opom con,enr»">
or this purpose,

• ■ ,1 Security Arrangement*

chapter XVII Tran.it.onal

“a -to force ol »ch .pe*>

Pending the coming into loTce ^„rity Council
Article 43 as In the opinion of bee

gjQ SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

exercise of its responsibilities under Article 42. the parties to the Four-Nation
Declaration, signed at Moscow, October 30. 1943. and France, shall, in ac-
cordance with the provisions of paragraph 5 of that Declaration, consult
with one another and as occasion requires with other Members of the Unite
Nations with a view to such joint action on behalf of the Organization a
may be necessary for the purpose of maintaining international peace ana
security.

Article 107

Nothing in the present Charter shall invalidate or preclude action, in rela-
tion to any state which during the Second World War has been an enemy
of any signatory to the present Charter, taken or authorized as a result ol
that war by the Governments having responsibility for such action.

chapter XVIII Amendments

Article 108

Amendments to the present Charter shall come into force for all Members
of the United Nations when they have been adopted by a vote of two thirds of
the members of the General Assembly and ratified in accordance with their
respective constitutional processes by two-thirds of the Members of the
United Nations, including all the permanent members of the Security
Council
Article 109

1. A General Conference of the Members of the United Nations for the
purpose of reviewing the present Charter may be held at a date and place
to be fixed by a two thirds vote of the members of the General Assembly
and by a vote of any seven members of the Security Council. Each Member
of the United Nations shall have one vote in the conference.

2. Any alteration of the present Charter recommended by a two-thirds
vote of the conference shall take effect when ratified in accordance with
their respective constitutional processes by two-thirds of the Members of the
United Nations including all the permanent members of the Security
Council.

3 If such a conference has not been held before the tenth annual session
of the General Assembly following the coming into force of the present
Charter, the proposal to call such a conference shall be placed on the
agenda of that session of the General Assembly, and the conference sha
be held if so decided by a majority vote of the members of the Genera
Assembly and by a vote of any seven members of the Security Council.

THE CHARTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS

511

(V tier XIX Ratification and Signature

Article 110

1. The present Charter shall be ratified by the signatory staler in accord-
ance with their respective constitutional processes.

2. The ratifications shall be deposited with the Government of the United
States of America, which shall notify all the signatory states of each de ( K>tii
as well as the Secretary-General of the Organization when he has been ap-
pointed.

3. The present Charter shall come into force upon the deposit of ratifica-
tions by the Republic of China, France, the Union of Soviet Socialist Re-
publics, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and
the United States of America, and by a majority of the other signatory states.
A protocol of the ratifications deposited shall thereupon be drawn up by
the Government of the United States of Amenca which sliall communicate
copies thereof to all the signatory states.

f. The r.o.et ti 5 notory to the ptotttl Chorte, »h.ch totily It otter it hot
come it, to lotto -ill become orl s in>l Member, of the United Notion, on
the dote ol the depotit ot their lerpeeine tottficotion.

Article 111

The ptetent Chortet. ol .hid. the Chine*. Freed, Rttttlon. FnSlith. .end
Aptm/teot, ore

.heTOl*.™^noni.,ed by .hot C-entment to the Co.emment. ol the
-l^r^to? the tepretentotitet the Core.ntnent. o, the United
o^Ltyli *nC:,'i«n T-enty doth dtyo, Jttne. one thoo-
un«l nine hundred and forty five-

APPENDIX

III The North Atlantic
Treaty

The Parties to this Treaty reaffirm their faith in the purposes and prin-
ciples of the Charter of the United Nations and their desire to live m peace
with all peoples and all governments d

They are determined to safeguard the freedom, common heritage ana
civilization of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, in
vidtial liberty and the rule of law.

They seek to promote stability and well being in the North Atlanti
They are resolved to unite their efforts for collective defense and for tne
preservation of peace and security.

They therefore agree to this North Atlantic Treaty:

Article 1

The Parties undertake, as set forth in the Charter of the United Nations,
to settle any international dispute in which they may be involved y peace
ful means in such a manner that international peace and security, ana ]
tice, are not endangered, and to refrain in their international relations irom
the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes o
the United Nations

Article 2

The Parties will contribute toward the further development of peaceful
and friendly international relations by strengthening their free institution,
by bringing about a better understanding of the principles U P°”. w
these institutions are founded, and by promoting conditions of *ta 1 1 I
well-being. They will seek to eliminate conflict in their internationa e
nomic policies and will encourage economic collaboration between any
all of them.

Article S

In order more effectively to achieve the objectives of this
Parties, separately and jointly, by means of continuous and effective

513

THE NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY
and mutual aid, fill maintain and develop their individual and collective
capacity to resist armed attack.

Article 4

The Patties will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of
them, the territorial integrity, political independence or recur,., ol any ol
the Parties is threatened.

Article 5

The Parties agree dm. an armed attack again,, one or more oi them in
Eutnpe or North America shall be considered an attack aga.n.t them all
and consequently the, agree that, if such an armed attack occur, eadr ol
them in exercise of the right of individual or collect, ve self-defense recog.

U AnV,"ch armed attack »” d f ^TeLm"h.lf be
Zt^nTe'^ConS h’a. uken .hr measure, necessary to
restore and maintain international peace and security.

Article 6 , ,

, a ...u r „„ armed attack on one or more of the
For the purpose o armed attack on the territory of any of

Parties is deemed to inc America on the Algerian departments of

the Parties in Europe or or ’ p jn Europe, on the islands

Prance, on the oecnpat,." force, d an , ^ ^

ZZp'c KnZr o„",L Jef, or aire.f. in d,i, area o, any dre
Parties.

Article 7 „ . t ball not be interpreted as affecting, in

This T '" , l'. d °” 4 0 Hip,ion, under the Charter of the Parties which

an, way the nglt ■ and ° bl ‘P „ primary responubili^ ot

EJ5SLS 2 die maintenance of interna, iona, peace and wend,,.

n ‘ C * . , _ -one of the international engagements now in

Each Party « thf Parties or any third state i, in fon .

force between it and any o an(l undertakes not to enter I„ to

interna tio: inaT Vi ngagement in conflict with this Treaty.

An,<le 9 muncil on which each of them dist! *

mpZnZZZmZZ.ten — *• •W— ■ - £

514

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

Treaty. The council shall be so organized as to be able to meet
at any time. The council shall set up such subsidiary bodies as may
sary: in particular it shall establish immediately a defense committee ’
shall recommend measures for the implementation of Articles 3 and 5.

promptly
be neces-

Article 10

The Parties may. by unanimous agreement, invite any other European
state in a position to further the principles of this Treaty and to contribute
to the security of the North Atlantic area to accede to this Treaty. Any
state so invited may become a party to the Treaty by depositing its mstru
ment of accession with the Government of the United States of America.
The Government of the United Slates of America will inform each of the
Parties of the deposit of each such instrument of accession.

Article 11

This Treaty shall be ratified and its provisions carried out by the Parties
in accordance with their respective constitutional processes. The instruments
of ratification shall be deposited as soon as possible with the Government ot
the United States of America, which will notify all the other signatories o
each deposit. The Treaty shall enter into force between the states which
have ratified it as soon as the ratifications of the majority of the signatories,
including the ratifications of Belgium, Canada, France, Luxembourg, t c
Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States, have been depos-
ited and shall come into effect with respect to other states on the date o
the deposit of their ratifications.

Article 12

After the Treaty has been in force for ten years, or at any time thereafter,
the Parties shall, if any of them so requests, consult together for the purpose
of reviewing the Treaty, having regard for the factors then affecting peace
and security in the North Atlantic area, including the development of uni
versal as well as regional arrangements under the Charter of the Unite
Nations for the maintenance of international peace and security.

Article 13

After the Treaty has been in force for twenty years, any Party may cease
to be a Party one year after its notice of denunciation has been given to ic
Government of the United States of America, which will inform e
Governments of the other Parties of the deposit of each notice of denuncia-

Artide 14

This Treaty, of which the English and French texts are equally authentic,
shall be deposited in the archives of the Government of the United States o
America Duly certified copies thereof will be transmitted by that overn
ment to the Governments of the other signatories.

April 4. 1949.

Appendix IV

ORGANS OF THE UNITED NATIONS

append.x IV Basic Information
About the United
Nations System

Tho purpose ol thil Melton 1. to provide the ettentiil Itetutl
the complex structure of international agencies which ami u
Nations system. It does not purport to be a comprehensive an •

•1 it were, it could not for long remain an accurate one. . , j

growth are leading features of the contemporary network of
institutions. The student of international organization t*h _ a f.

“P with the United Nations” will find a steady stream of pu un .

ing from the United Nations itself, the United States ve .

official sources. Notable among the periodic or annua
«on provided by the United Nation, are Basic Feet,

lion, Everyman', United Nations, and the Yearbook of the U , ‘ , by

volumes Ihted in order of increasing sue and scope. H* annual K *
the Secretary-General and the monthly United Rations Unitevl

additions to the list. The Department of State gives some 8

Nations affairs in its Bulletin, and provides a ”ThS» "n^.he
Ae annual document. U. S. Participation m the L*. Mica .

President's report on this subject to the Congress, mo ff ‘ Foun .

bons. she quarterly journal. International Orgamm to 0 _ - f £ n{ J 0 w.
dvtion. Bmton). .nd ihe iuu, ot /nlira.lton.l ,h,

"*«> to, r«ce. No. Sort) pubhd,rf '>>>'■ |hj ,

"Pooiop b „| a«™M 7. » ho, no, .

body, deserve special mention. This Appendix P ro . about the

*"n cut. so the acquisition of an adequate body of ^

umturc and operations of the United Nations lyuem.

*M there is no stopping place. $D

516

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

Membership in the United Nations System

The United Nations:

Original Members (51)*

Argentina

Australia

Belgium

Bolivia

Brazil

Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic

Canada

Chile

China

Colombia

Costa Rica

Cuba

Czechoslovakia

Denmark

Dominican Republic

Ecuador

•Egypt

El Salvador

Ethiopa

France

Greece

Guatemala

Haiti

Honduras

Iraq

Lebanon

Liberia

Luxembourg

Mexico

Netherlands

New Zealand

Nicaragua

Norway

Panama

Paraguay

Peru

Philippines
Poland
Saudi Arabia
•Syria
Turkey

Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic
Union of South Africa
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Northern Ireland
United States of America
Uruguay
Venezuela
Yugoslavia

• Since early 1958, Egypt and Syria have constituted a single member state, the
United Arab Republic. Hence, the list of original members has been reduced o

Adr.

Afghanista

Iceland

Sweden

Thailand

Pakistan

Burma

Indonesia

(formerly Siam)

November 19, 1946
November 19, 1946
November 19. 1946
December 16, 1946
September 30, 1947
September 30 1947
April 19, 1948
May II, 1949
September 28, 1950

517

INFORMATION ABOUT UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM
AH.mll Dncmbir H. [955

Austria .
Bulgaria . .
Cambodia .
Ceylon . . .
Finland . . .
Hungary ..
Ireland . . .

Italy

Jordan . . .

Libya

Portugat . .
Romania

Morocco . ,

Ghana ...
Malaya .

December 14. 1955
December 14, 1955
December 14, 1955
December 14. 1955
December 14, 1955
December 14. 1955
December 14. 1955
December 14, 1955
December 14. 1955
December 14, 1955
December 14, 1955
December 14. 1955
December 14, 1955
December 14, 1955
December 14, 1935
November 12. 1956
November 12, 1956
November 12. 1956
December 18. 1956
March 8. 1957
September 17. 1957

No IOI, hu withdrawn from the Unitrf Notion,, .nd nont h.» b«n <“™ ' »

wttpeded or expelled. Now member. ,.e xdmit.ed b, the Central Au eraM ,
t*pon the recommendation of the Seem, Coontil. An, pentu»«» >
of the Security Council may block admission of a state by using iU po
to prevent a favorable recommendation by the Council.

The Specialised Agencies:

■The rotten of the tpedalired xsencie, U.t .hr
hen (information supplied by the United Nations, Ju y

Number of
members

International Labor Organisation (ILO) 77

Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) ■ • • .'UlUn lilt ion

United Nations Educational. Scientific and Cultural Orga M

(UNESCO) • 85

'torld Health Organization (WHO) , ' . /rno D) W

International Bank for Reconstruction and Developm 0 M

International Monetary Fund (IMF) 52

International Finance Corporation (1FQ 72

International Civil Atiation Organization ( 1 C.VO) - p«

Lmvtrsal Postal Lmon (ITU) .... 95

International Telecommunication t'nmn (l»lj .... ' A

«*>tt<l Meteorological Organiialion (WMO) “

Inlet Governmental Maritime Consultative Organization (I ) ft»

Intemaiional Atomic Fnergy Agency $15EA)

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

518

Units other than independent states-colonies, protectorates, or territories
under trusteeship— are included in the membership lists of UPU. ITU, _and
WMO. Some entities of this type also have associate membership in UNESCO,
WHO, and ITU.

The following states, not members of the United Nations, belong to one
or more of the specialized agencies or to the International Court of Justice,
and are thus, in varying degrees, participants in the United Nations system:

Federal Republic of Germany

Liechtenstein

Monaco

Republic of Korea
San Marino
Switzerland
Vatican City
Vietnam

Membership in the United Nations does not carry with it automatic mem-
bership in the specialized agencies, and the members of the United Nations
vary in the degree to which they maintain affiliation with those agencies For
instance, the United States belongs to all of the specialized agencies, while
she Soviet Union is not a member of FAO, IBRD. IMF, 1FC, ICAO, or IMCO.

Basic Structure and Procedure of the General Assembly

The General Assembly, the only organ of the United Nations in which all
members of the organization are represented, is aptly described as the cen-
terpiece" of the system. It meets annually, beginning on the third Tuesday in
September, and in such special sessions as may be required. Its work is done
m large part through the seven Main Committees, to which most agen a
items are assigned:

Political and Security Committee (First Committee)

Special Political Committee

Economic and Financial Committee (Second Committee)

Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee (Third Committee)
Trusteeship Committee (Fourth Committee)

Administrative and Budgetary Committee (Fifth Committee)

Legal Committee (Sixth Committee)

Each of these is a committee of the whole, in which each member has equal
right of representation and vote. _

At the beginning of each session, the Assembly elects its President an
Vice-Presidents (prior to 1956. seven Vice-Presidents were elected at J ach
session; this number was gradually increased, and the rules of procedure
were altered on December 12. 1957, to provide that thirteen Vice-Presidents

INFORMATION ABOUT UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM &ly

should be chosen at future sessions). These officers, together with the elected
chairmen of the seven Main Committees, constitute the General Committee,
which serves as a kind of steering committee for the Assembly. This body
considers the provisional agenda which is compiled by the Secretary-General,
and additional agenda proposals which may be submitted by member states,
and makes recommendations for final approval by the Assembly concerning
the acceptance of the agenda and the allocation of items to e am m
mittees. It is also concerned with the scheduling of the business of the As-
sembly, the establishment of priorities among the subjects for debate, an
the termination of sessions. . , „ .

The Assembly also establishes at each session a Credentials Committee,
which makes recommendations to the plenary body concerning the accept-
ance of the credentials of the representatives of member states
The Main Committees adopt proposals on the items a ocat ® ° , ’

simple majority vote, subject to final decision by the Assem y m p
session. Since the Assembly require. , two-third,
resolutions on "important questions," the proposals of the h am
are sometimes rejected or modified in plenary session. deems

The Assembly has authority to create such tttb.idtary bodies • > deem,

necessary for the performance of its functions. It hat exercise
frequently. et.abE.tg a wide variety of subordinate org.n. otM per
nutrient and temporary character- These range from l e n v I . , . .

of the General Assembly, a eommit.ee dm whole win* ^ ^

ever functions the Assembly assigns to it in the i United

sessions, to such a specialised body at the Advisory Committee : tor
Nation, Memorial Cemetery io Korea. During its 6rs, . f “
Assembly established 87 subsidiary bodies, and aut
General to create 8 others. The l/n.ted Netien, Ke.rtoo* for
such bodies as having been in existence during that year.

The procedural tfeps involved in the on of

sembly vary so greatly from case to case that i „ However , the

given pattern as "the way the Assembly passes a > g eneraI Assembly
following cases, drawn from the summary of activities Winter 1958,

« ... Twelfth Session presented in Mermtlioue! Organ, -Non, Winter
are flint, rative of major type, of Assembly act, on: , reran-

(1) The Secretary-General presented to .-hers Dosted in Geneva,

mendation for certain adjustments affecting sta m . n Adrainis-

After considering the view, expressed b, she “"'.or^” ' propoul , ,„d
•rative and Budgetary Questions, the Commit* e PP

•he Assembly subsequently ratified this decision. h ; c aspects of the

(2) A joint draft resolution relating to e e Second Committee

problem of economic development was submitte . tion waJ adopted

hy Brazil, Italy, Mexico, Pakistan, and Peru, in ^

Unanimously, first by the Committee and then y j tem proposed bv

(3) The agenda adopted by the Assembly ^ of stat e». The USSR

the Soviet Union, pertaining to the peacefu

520 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

submitted to the First Committee a draft resolution listing certain principles
of behavior as essentials of peaceful coexistence. However, India, Sweden,
and Yugoslavia presented a substitute draft to the Committee. The latter
version was voted by the Committee, and the Soviet Union dropped its pro-
posal. The Assembly adopted the three-power draft which the Committee
had recommended.

(4) The First Committee debated a wide range of issues related to the
general problem of disarmament. Draft resolutions on various aspects of
the problem were presented by the Soviet Union, by Japan, by India, by
Belgium, by Yugoslavia, and by a group of twenty-four states which had
been mobilized by the major Western powers. The Committee adopted the
draft sponsored by the twenty-four powers, after having amended it in ac-
cordance with proposals made by India, by Norway and Pakistan, and by a
group of five Latin American states. It also adopted the Belgian draft resolu-
tion, after Poland had succeeded in amending it. The other proposals were
either defeated or withdrawn by their sponsors.

In plenary action, the Assembly passed the two draft resolutions which
had been approved by the Committee. At this stage, two proposals relating to
the composition of the Disarmament Commission were introduced, one by the
Soviet Union, and the other by a group of six states. The Assembly rejected
the Soviet proposal, voted down an attempt by Albania to modify the six-
power proposal, and adopted the latter in its original form.

(5) The Algerian question, involving a sharp clash between France and
the anticolonial bloc, provoked extensive debate in the First Committee.
Two draft resolutions were presented to the Committee: one, sponsored by
seventeen states of the Asian-African-Arab group, constituted a general en-
dorsement of the position of the Algerian rebels; the other, submitted jointly
by Italy, Spain, and five Latin American states, reflected greater sympathy
for the position taken by France. Ireland, Canada, and Norway joined in
proposing two amendments to the seventeen power draft, designed to make U
less offensive to France. These amendments passed by a narrow majority, but
the resolution, thus modified, failed of adoption. Since the sponsors of the
seven-power draft decided not to push their proposal to a vote, the Committee
ended its consideration of die case without recommending any action by the
Assembly.

When the Algerian problem was taken up by the Assembly in plenary
session, a new draft resolution was submitted by a group of fifteen states which
included members of several of the major blocs. This was a compromise
proposal, containing an endorsement of conciliatory measures, and it was
unanimously approved by the Assembly.

Pacific Settlement of Disputes

Both the Ceneral Assembly and the Security Council have responsibilities
in regard to the promotion of peaceful solutions for international disputes,

INFORMATION ABOUT UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM

521

and have developed machinery and techniques for this purpose. From time
to time, both organs have utilized a wide variety of pacific settlement de-
vices, including committees of investigation, negotiating committees, good
offices bodies, mediators, truce supervision teams, plebiscite supervisors, etc.

The Yearbook for 1956 lists the following subsidiary bodies of the General
Assembly, in existence between January 1, 1956, and March 8, 1957, which
are relevant to the pacific settlement function:

United Nations Emergency Force

Advisory Committee on the United Nations Emergency Force
United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine
Special Committee on the Problem of Hungary
Panel for Inquiry and Conciliation
Peace Observation Commission

Balkan Sub Commission . ,

United Nations Commission for the Unification and Rehabilitation o
Korea

United Nations Commission to Investigate Conditions for Free Elections
in Germany (inactive since 1952)

The Security Council listing for the same period includes the following
organs:

United Nations Commission for Indonesia (inactive since 1951)

United Nations Truce Supers ision Organization in Palestine
United Nations Representative for India and Pakistan
United Nations Military Observer Group for India and Pakista

The United Nations Field Service is maintained as an ^u.^nolitica'l

technical service, to special missions sent into the field by the pol.t.cal

Conciliatory functions are occasionally undertaken era j

General Assembly and the Security Council, and by die Secretary-General,
acting in person or through designated representatives. machinery

The most notable innovation in the field of paci c se ^ ^ aM ;„

'» the United Nations Emergency Force, created in * ' a ° 5 ^00 men

'he stabilization of the Middle Eastern situation. This for« ,

» commanded by General E. L. M. Burns, and includes military person
,u pplied by the following states:

Brazil

Canada

Colombia

Denmark

Finland

India

Indonesia

Norway

Sweden

Yugoslavia

General direction of the United Nations
authority of the Ceneral Assembly, is exercised t>y

under the
Committee

522 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

headed by the Secretary-General and composed of representatives of Branl.
Canada, Ceylon. Colombia, India, Norway, and Pakistan.

Collective Security

The Military Staff Committee, a subsidiary organ of the Security Council,
bears responsibility for negotiating agreements with member states to provide
armed contingents for use by the Security Council in maintaining the peace.
No such agreements have in fact been concluded, and the enforcement scheme
envisaged in Chapter VII of the Charter remains a dead letter.

In the one instance of military action against aggression which has been
undertaken under United Nations auspices, the Korean War, the Military
Staff Committee was by-passed and a special mechanism for collective action
was improvised. The United States Government was requested to establish
a Unified Command, and forces were provided by the following member
states:

Australia Greece Turkey

Belgium Luxembourg Union of South

Canada Netherlands Africa

Colombia New Zealand United Kingdom

Ethiopia Philippines United States

France Thailand

The Republic of Korea also placed its forces under the Unified Command.
Medical units were supplied by Denmark, India, Italy, Norway, and Swe en.

Under the Uniting for Peace Resolution of November 3, 1950, the Genera
Assembly established the Collective Measures Committee, which was designed
to study the possibilities of United Nations enforcement action in response
to decisions by the Security Council or recommendations by the Genera
Assembly. The Committee maintains a Panel of Military Experts to give
advice upon request to states wishing to develop plans for contributing to
joint military action under the sponsorship of the United Nations. Despite
the request, incorporated in the Uniting for Peace Resolution, that mem er
states designate forces that might be asailable for collective action, t e
United Nations remains wholly dependent upon improvisation in this regar

Disarmament and Control of Atomic Energy

Under the Charter, the General Assembly and the Security Council share
responsibility for the problems of the limitation and control of armaments.
Hence, the mechanisms created for dealing with these problems report to
both the political organs. . .

Initially, the United Nations established the Atomic Energy Commission
and the Commission for Conventional Armaments These bodies were re
placed in 1952 b) a single Disarmament Commission, charged with negotia ing

INFORMATION

523

ABOUT UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM

plans for limitation and control of armaments of both '‘conventional” and
nuclear varieties. This commission was composed of all states which held
membership in the Security Council, plus Canada, and it worked largely
through a Sub-Committee of Canada, France, the Soviet Union, the United
Kingdom, and the United States.

The General Assembly decided in November, 1957, to enlarge the Dis-
armament Commission by the addition of fourteen member states. The
additional members named for 1958 were as follows:

Argentina Czechoslovakia

Australia Egypt

Belgium India

Brazil Italy

Burma Mexico

Norway

Poland

Tunisia

Yugoslavia

The augmented Commission was prevented from beginning its work by the
Soviet Union’s refusal to participate, an expression of that states dissatis
don with the composition of the body. . . f lis .

In addition to the creation of subsidiary bodies for t e n g . UJ

armament plans, the United Nations has indicated its cone j

specialized problem, .deed CO che me. and mi.u.e. ol .»»* j”

1955. the organization sponsored an International on ere
lul Uses ol Atomie Energy, and nndertook Ore prepmc. on o .
lerenee. in September. 1958. The General Assembly has created ^
as .he Advlso^ Committee on the Peaeelol Uses oi Atomtc E««n "
seientific Committee on the ESect. ot Atomic *•***.
playing a role In the establishment of the Incern.eiott.l Atomte En rgy
Agency.

Legal Matters

The International Court of Justice is the ' Jmemberslre elected

United Nations. Its seat is at the Hague, and its f Special procedure
by the General Assembly and the Security u “ Nations ar e ipso facto
laid down in its Statute. All members of th i ech tenstem, San Marina
parties to the Statute of the Court; additions iy, assume jurisdic-

and Switzerland have adhered to that Statute. The o ^ parties involved,
tion over international disputes only with the conse " accept the jurisdiction
«cept that states may bind themselves in advance --optional clause,"

of the Court in designated types of cases y rati yi optional clause.

Article 36 of the Statute. In 1957, 32 states were ou matters submitted

The Court also renders advisory opinions concemmg s or other age0 cies

t0 it by the Security Council, the Genera s

authorized by the Assembly. f . bv the following I»t of cases:

The extent of the Court's activity is indicate y

524

SWORDS

TO PLOWS II.

JUDGMENTS IN CONTENTIOUS CASES
1949: Corfu Channel Case (United Kingdom — Albania)

1950: Asylum (Hayade la Tone) Case (Colombia— Peru) [First Part]

1951: Asylum (Haya de la Tone) Case [Second Pan]

Fisheries Case (United Kingdom— Norway)

1952: Rights of Nationals of the United States in Morocco (France-
United States)

1953: Ambatielos Case (Greece — United Kingdom)

Minquiers and Ecrehos Case (United Kingdom — France)

1955: Nottebohra Case (Liechtenstein — Guatemala)

ADVISORY OPINIONS

1948: Conditions of admission to membership in the United Nations
1949: Reparation for injuries suffered in the service of the United Nations
1950: Interpretation of the Peace Treaties with Dulgaria, Hungary, and
Romania

Competence of the General Assembly for the admission of a state to
the United Nations

International Status of South West Africa
1951: Reservations to the Convention on Genocide

1954 Effect of awards of compensation made by the United Nations
Administrative Tribunal

1955: Voting procedure on questions relating to reports and petitions con-
cerning the territory of South West Africa
1956: Admissibility of hearings of petitionen by the Committee on South
West Africa

Judgments of the Administrative Tribunal of the International
Labour Organisation upon complaints made against the United
Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization
The General Assembly has exercised its responsibility for encouraging the
development of international law by creating the International Law Com-
mission, a permanent body of legal experts, and a variety of temporary and
specialized committees, including a Committee on International Criminal
Jurisdiction and a Special Committee on Defining Aggression. The prepara-
tory work of the International Law Commission led to the convening of an
International Conference on the Law of the Sea. held at Geneva in 1958.
The Secretary-General, utilizing his Legal Counsel, issues occasional opinions
on legal problems affecting the work of the United Nations.

Dependent Peoples

_ The United Nations Trusteeship System is designed to provide interna-
tional supervision of the administration of such territories as may be volun-
tarily placed under it by the conclusion of Trusteeship Agreements, which
must be approved by the General Assembly. The following territories have
been involved in the system:

INFORMATION ABOUT UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM

525

Nauru— administered by Australia (on behalf of Australia, New Zealand,
and the United Kingdom)

New Guinea — administered by Australia
Ruanda-Urundi — administered by Belgium
Cameroons — administered by France
Cameroons — administered by the United Kingdom
Togoland — administered by France
* Togoland— administered by the United Kingdom.

Somaliland — administered by Italy

Western Samoa — administered by New Zealand

Tanganyika — administered by the United Kingdom

Territory of the Pacific Islands — administered by the United States

All of the above territories are former League of Nations Mandates, except
for Somaliland, which was placed under Italian administration by decision of
the General Assembly. Somaliland, whose administration is supervised by a
special advisory council composed of representatives of Egypt, Colom ia, an
the Philippines, is scheduled to become independent in 1960, at the expira-
tion of a ten-year period of trusteeship. The United States succeeded japan
as the administering authority in the Territory of the Pacific Islands, w en
the League of Nations was superseded by the United Nations. One League
Mandate, South West Africa, has failed to be incorporated m the Tr “* t « s *‘ , P
System because of the insistence of the Union of South A rtca, w «
ministers the territory. The United Nations has not made use o e p
of Article 81 of the Charter which permits administration of trust tern

by the organization itself. . , _ .

The General Assembly has general responsibility for th ? ope ” ‘ , h - .
Trusteeship Sptem, except for the Tcm.or, of the Ptte, to M»ds wh *
» designated a, a strategic ate, and is therefore under the super,. non of *•
Security Council. The effective operation of the system is *- mr ™ .

Trusteeship Council, an organ equally balanced in mem ers .yj.
states administering trust territories and states not having sue P . s j onJ
The Trusteeship Council maintains a regular schedule o visi g
to the trust territories, and considers petitions from in >y« Genera i

in the territories as well as reports by the responsible ^thont.es. The Gene a
Assembly, acting particularly through its Fourth Comm.t«ee a!so con», d e rs
questions relating to the system. Subject to advice and r «*^ 0n fi nal
organs of the United Nations, the administering author!
authority in the trust territories, except that the Trusteeship Agreements
«nnot be terminated or modified without the approval of th
sembly, . ■

Non-self-governing territories other than Yhe submission

»he provisions of Chapter XI of the Charter, * h ch ' £ ns bv their admin!*-
* reports on economic, social, and educational conditions by their
. „ , in 1957 , tthen it acheived inde-

* British Togoland ceased to be a trust territory in m
PenUence as a part of Ghana

526 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

tering authorities to the Secretary-General. The General Assembly has im-
plemented this provision by creating a subsidiary body, now known as the
Committee on Information from Non Self-Governing Territories, to examine
the reports. By analogy to the Trusteeship Council, this Committee is com-
posed of the states submitting reports, balanced by an equal number of ot er
member states. Reports are now received from 55 territories, governed jr
Australia, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United
Kingdom, and the United States.

The initiative in designating the territories concerning which reports
are to be made lies with the governments which control them. The Genera
Assembly has exhibited great interest in the question of defining the degree
of self-government which justifies the cessation of reports; to deal with this
issue, it established Ad Hoc Committees on Factors at its sixth and seventh
sessions, and voted in 1955 to approve a list of factors which should be con-
sidered in assessing the reality of self-government. On several occasions, the
Assembly has asserted the competence to determine the validity of claims
that a given territory has reached a status warranting its removal from the
list of non self-governing territories, but this assertion has been denied y
the administering states.

Budgets of the United Nations System

The inevitable question about international organization, as about national
government, is "How much does it cost?" Even though financial statistics do
not tell everything, it is still true that "money talks." The budgetary figures
tell a great deal about the value attached to the work of international organi-
zation by governments, the nature of the functional emphases developed by
international agencies, and the vitality of the United Nations system. T e
figures given in the chart at the bottom of p. 527 relate to the ordinary
budgetary expenditures of the United Nations and the major specialized
agencies, expenses covered primarily by assessments upon member states.

The budget of the United Nations is based upon estimates prepared by the
Secretary-General. These estimates are studied by the Advisory Committee on
Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ), a committee of individual
experts chosen by the General Assembly, which submits its recommendations
to the Assembly. The Fifth Committee of the Assembly prepares the budget
proposal for final action by the General Assembly in plenary session. The
budgets of the specialized agencies are determined by the appropriate bodies
of those agencies, but are subject to review and comment by the ACABQ
and the General Assembly.

The scale of assessments for contributions by member states to the United
Nations budget is fixed by the Assembly, on the basis of recommendations
made by its Committee on Contributions. The following chart lists those
states which are assigned a share of 1% or more for the 1959 budget. (Source.
General Assembly Resolution 1225 (XII), December 14, 1957.)

527

INFORMATION ABOUT UNITFD NATIONS SYSTEM

Argentina *■!*%

Australia 1,61

Belgium 124

Brazil 106

Canada 309

China 5 °1

Prance 5 - 56

India 2-90

Italy 2D3

Japan

Netherlands

Poland

Sweden

Ukrainian S.S.R.
U.S.S.R.

UJC.

1» addition to the aegnlae bnd f „

a number of programs carried on by th , stares secured

agencies which are supported by ^fj^bb's' Negotiating Committee for
largely through the imuam-e of the include the following:

Extra-Budgetary Funds. These programs currently inciu

Expanded Program of Technical A«is'ance
United Nations Children s Fund (UNICEF)

Slid ££ 53T- '» — 1 - K "“ se ” ta

the Near East

. totalled approximately 573-9 million

Contribution, to thae lout program* P p

tor 1956 and S72.7 million for 1957. originally aupporutd b, a com-

The United Nations Emergency Force 8

-“fflagssssfBSs-

, 1956 1«7 Appropri-

1953 1954 19 , Actual Appropri- ations or

S Actual W Acn^ PPP Cs tima.es

expenses «P«“«

UN 49 29 $ 2 522 48,510,009 50.089,808 50,508,095 *50.815,700 S {^90,

a S sss isssss isss

I HUU

T “- 82 '“ ; ” ™ * canal An™,b„ to—- .222 TO -

ber luS * , at . on of ,55,062.850 was voted by the General Assembly »

528 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

bination of assessments and voluntary contributions. However, the General
Assembly decided in its Resolution 1151 (XII) of November 22, 1957. that
future costs should be met entirely by assessments upon member states,
scaled according to the formula established for the regular budget. The cost
of maintaining the force during 1958 is estimated at 520,200,000.

Currently, the total cost of the United Nations system — for ordinary
budgets, special programs, and the maintenance of UNEF — is on the order
of $200 million per year. This is an infinitesimal sum by comparison with
the military expenditures of governments, but a munificent allowance for
international organization by comparison with the budget of the League of
Nations, which reached a peak of $6 5 million in 1932.

The Secretariats of the United Nations System

The United Nations and each of the specialised agencies have separate
international staffs, functioning under the control of the appropriate political
organs of their respective organizations In 1958, the established posts in the
various secretariats totalled as follows (Source: General Assembly, Official
Records: Twelfth Session, Supplement No. 5A, p. 8):

United Nations

1LO

FAO

UNESCO

ICAO

<1,398 UPU .

889 WHO

1.085 ITU .

1,002 WHO

455

Some degree of coordination of these segments of the "international civil
service" is effected by the Administrative Committee on Coordination, com-
posed of the chief officers (or their representatives) of the United Nations
and the specialized agencies, and by the International Civil Service Advisoty
Board, which was created on the initiative of the General Assembly at its
first session.

The Secretary-General of the United Nations is elected by the General
Assembly on the basis of a recommendation by the Security Council. This
post was first held by Trygve Lie, of Norway: he was succeeded on April 10,
1953, by Dag Hammarskjold, of Sweden, who was reflected for an additional
five-year term on September 26, 1957. The Secretary-General is responsible
for his administration of the United Nations Secretariat to the General
Assembly, which adopts staff regulations, fixes the pattern of organization of
the staff, establishes salary scales, and the like. For these purposes, the
Assembly relies heavily upon the advice and guidance of the Advisory Com-
mittee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions. The Assembly maintains
the United Nations Administrative Tribunal as a judicial body to render
judgment on contested questions regarding the rights and duties of staff
members in relation to the organization. A similar tribunal serves ILO, WHO,
UNESCO, FAO, ITU, and WHO.

The Secretary-General is obligated to consider the importance of securing

INFORMATION ABOUT UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM 529

a K“gwphical distribution as well as of maintaining high standards of
competence in his selection of personnel. In practice, the effort is made to
employ nationals of member states in roughly the same proportion as the
states share in die United Nations budget.

Coordination of the Specialized Agencies

The United Nations system is based on the principle of decentralization,
^ it i die specialized agencies basing their separate constitutions, membership
cwters, budgets, secretariats, and political organs. N'esertheless, the Charter
scheme envisages the coordination or ihr work of the United Nations and
the autonomous agencies by the General Assembly and, under its authority,
the Economic and Social Council.

The task of coordination is complicated by (he geographical dispersion of
the headquarters of the agencies. The central offices are located as follows:

United Nations

New Fork

1FC

Washington

ICAO

Montreal

Rome

uru

.. . Bertie

ITU

. . . Geneva

wmo . . .

Geneva

IBRD

Washington

mco

. . London

Washington

IAEA

Vienna

The primary operating responsibility for coordination lies with the
Economic and Social Council. Formal agreements with the agencies have
been negotiated under the auspices of the Council (except in the case of the
IAEA, which dealt with the Advisory Committee on the Peaceful Uses of
Atomic Energy, a subsidiary body of the Assembly, and which has a uniquely
direct relationship with the political organs of the United Nations), and ap-
proved by the Assembly. The Council works through its Coordination
Committee and the Administrative Committee on Coordination, which
functions on the secretariat level Cooperation among the segments of the
system is also effected through the machinery for the joint program of tech-
nical assistance, and through informal contact and consultation among staff
members of the various agencies.

Economic, Social, and Humanitarian Matters

The General Assembly, operating particularly through its Second and
Third Committees, gives general direction to the work of the United Nations
system in these fields. Under the authority of the Assembly, the Economic
and Social Council serves as the central agency for promoting international
cooperation in economic, social, and humanitarian affairs
The Council, a body of representatives of eighteen states chosen by the
Assembly, supervises the work of the following subsidiary commissions:

550

SWORI

INTO PLOWSHARES

FUNCTIONAL COMMISSIONS
Transport and Communications Commission
Statistical Commission
Population Commission
Social Commission
Commission on Human Rights

Sub Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of
Minorities

Commission on the Status of Women

Commission on Narcotic Drugs

Commission on International Commodity Trade

REGIONAL COMMISSIONS
Economic Commission for Europe
Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East
Economic Commission for Latin America
Economic Commission for Africa (established in 1958)

The Council maintains cooperative relations with a variety of non govern-
mental organizations, selected for consultative status on the recommendation
of its Committee on Non Governmental Organizations. These organizations
are divided as follows those with interests broad enough to give them
general concern with the work of the Council are listed in Category A (1®
organizations); those which are especially concerned with only a few of the
fields of the Council's activity are listed in Category B (111 organizations);
those which have relatively narrow and specific interests and may be ap-
propriately consulted on an ad hoc basis, or which have consultative status
with specialized agencies, arc included on the Register (179 organizations)
These lists are revised from time to time.

The Council is a prolific creator of temporary bodies, composed of govern-
mental representatives or experts serving independently, which undertake
studies or consultations concerning special problems. Examples of such
bodies include the following;

Ad Hoc Committee on Organization and Operations of the Council
Ad Hoc Committee on Slavery
Ad Hoc Committee on Forced Labor

Committee on National and International Measures for Full Employ-
ment

Committee on Measures for International Economic Stability
Rapporteur on Freedom of Information
The work of the Council and its subordinate groups takes a wide variety of
forms, including the collection and analysis of information, the promotion of
discussions concerning problems common to states, the development of multi-
lateral conventions to be submitted to states for their ratification, the formu-
lation of plans for the creation of new international agencies, and the like.
Operating Programs: In addition to functions of the types described above.

INFORMATION AloUT UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM 53]

the Assembly and the Council have initiated and exercised responsibility for
* number of programs designed to render necessary services to governments
or to population groups. These include the following activities;

1. Expanded Program of Technical Assistance: This program, initiated in
1950, is carried out cooperatively by the United Nations and several of the
specialized agencies (11.0. FAO. UNESCO, WHO, ICAO, ITU, and WftfO
are formally identified with the program; IBRD and IMF cooperate on a
(ess formal basis). The operating arm of the United Nations in the provision
of services under the program is the Technical Assistance Administration, an
organ designed to supplement the work of the specialized agencies General
direction is provided by the Technical Assistance Committee, which is com-
posed of the members of the Economic and Social Council and six additional
states elected by the Council The effective management of the program is
entrusted to the Technical Assistance Board, a body consisting of an Ex-
ecutive Chairman representing the Secretary-General of the United Nations
and officials similarly representing the secretariats of the participating
specialized agencies.

The allocation of funds for the Expanded Program in 1958, as approved
by the General Assembly on December 14, 1957 (Resolution 1216 (XII)], is
as follows:

XJN Technical Assistance Administration $7,187,000

ILO 8,516.000

FAO 8,85 9,000

UNESCO 5,014,000

ICAO 1.389,000

WHO 6,169,000

ITU S50fi00

WMO 377,000

Total $32,861,000

The Economic and Social Council and the General Assembly have, since
1949, given continuing attention to the problem of creating an international
agency to carry out a large-scale program of economic development in the
underdeveloped countries. A succession of subsidiary organs has been used
to study the issues involved, culminating in the Ad Hoc Committee on the
Question of the Establishment of a Special United Nations Fund for Eco-
nomic Development, created by the Assembly in 1955. While it has not
been possible to secure agreement on the creation of a new agency for
capital investment under the auspices of the United Nation!, the Assembly
voted on December H, 1957, to establish a Special Fund to supplement the
program of technical assistance, and created a Preparatory Committee to
develop plans for the necessary machinery to administer and operate the
Special Fund.

2. United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF): This agency was established
by the General Assembly on December !1, 1916. to provide aid, on an
emergency basis, to children «hosc health and nutrition had suffered be-

532 SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

cause of wartime conditions. Subsequently, the emergency character of
UNICEF was discarded, and it has become a permanent agency for dealing
with the long range needs of children in more than one hundred countries
and territories. UNICEF is administered by an Executive Director and an
Executive Board designated by the Economic and Social Council. 2t func-
tions as an integral part of the United Nations, using funds supplied by
voluntary contributions of governments and private persons.

3. Refugee Programs: From the beginning, the United Nations has been
confronted with the responsibility of providing assistance to the large groups
of refugees produced by political upheavals. The General Assembly and the
Economic and Social Council have been most largely concerned with this
problem In 1916, the Assembly took the initiative in establishing a special-
lied agency, the International Refugee Organization, which served as the focal
point of refugee programs until its termination in 1952. In 1951, the As-
sembly created the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees, an agency which operates with funds voluntarily contributed to
the United Nations Refugee Fund. The Assembly has undertaken to meet
the needs of the refugees created by the conflict in Palestine in 1918 , first
through the United Nations Relief for Palestine Refugees, and, since late
1919, through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine
Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Programs involving both aid to
refugees and general rehabilitation of war damage in South Korea were
carried out by the United Nations Korean Reconstruction Agency, established
by the Assembly in 1950 and terminated in 1958.

4. Control of Narcotic Drugs: The Commission on Narcotic Drugs of the
Economic and Social Council heads up a mechanism for the international
control of narcotic drugs which was inherited by the United Nations from
the League of Nations. The primary agencies in the program of control are
the Permanent Central Opium Hoard and the Drug Supervisory Body, func-
tioning under the auspices of the Economic and Social Council. The WHO
collaborates closely in certain phases of this work.

INDEX

Acheson, Dean. 460-461
Acheson-Lilienthal plan, for atomic con-
trol, 310-512. 515-522
“Acheson Plan." for circumventing veto,
tee Uniting for Peace Resolution
Algeciras, Conference of (1906), 24
Algerian case. In United Nations, 456
467

Alliances. 50. 52-53, 60. 72. 82. 107, 121,
179, 251-253, 257, 262 263. 275-278. 358.
376, 460-463, 471

"American Century,” concept of, 410
Amery, L. S , 116
Arab League. 95. 120. 463. 471
Aristotle, 449

Atomic Development Authority, see
Acheson-Lllienthal plan

Baghdad Pact, 463

Balance of power, 60. 252, 256 257, 262,
300, 304 305, 307
Baldwin, Stanley, 281
Barr, Stringfellow, 411.412
Baruch, Bernard. 310, 312. 315. 317-319,
322

Bebr, Gerhard, 385
Beer. G. L„ 347
Bentham, Jeremy. 22
Berlin. Congresses of (1878. 1884 85). 24,
25. 346

Bestcrman, Theodore, 395-396
Bloc voting. 139. 357-361, 453-457
Boolhby, Robert, J 35
Boulding, Kenneth, 416 417
Bourgeois, Leon, 44. 54
Bradley, Omar, 252

Bncker Amendment, movement lor, 190-
191. 426

Bricker, John IV, 135
Orterly, James L, 86
British Commonwealth, 95, 116-120, 122
Bruce Committee, of League of Nations,
388-389

Brussels Conference (1890). 346
Brvan. William Jennings. 224

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 320
Burke, Edmund, 345
Burns, E L M„ 463

By-passing, problem of. in United Na-
tions, 237-239

Capehait, Homer, 399
Carnegie, Andrew, 32
Cecil. Lord Robert, 44, 45, 127, 148
Cervantes, Miguel de, 20
Chamberlain, Neville, 257
Charter Review Conference, 414, 447,
472

Chaumont, Treaty of. 25
Chinese representation, issue of, In
United Nations, 103-106. 108-110, 170,
331,452,456
Choate, Joseph H , 31
Churchill, Winston. 64, 74, 80, ISO 121,
146, 170. 300.349-350
Cicero. 222, 447
Clark. Crenville, 431, 432
Clemenceau, Georges, 55, 97
Cohen, Benjamin V, 253
Collective security 58, 60. 75, 86, 177,
21 J, 250 294. 296, 301, 306, 309. 436,
445, 447, 460-463, 466. See also Itaiian-
Elhiopiin case. Korean war
Commission on Intergovernmental Rela-
tions, in United Slates, 427
Community-building process, 5, 8, 139,
291, 293, 378, 386 337, 401-402. 415-416,
412-445

Concert of Europe. 23-31, S3, 40, 45, 53

Connolly, Tom, 80

Coolidge. Calvin, 2 13

Cooper, John Shetman, 141

Corbett. P. E„ 412

Council of Europe, 5, 123, 134

Council of State Governments, 427

Cripps, Sir Stafford, 146

Cnief. Zmenc. 22

Cyprus case, in Uhited Nations. 122,456

Dandurand. Senator. 241
Dame Alighieri, 22

533

INDEX

53 $

Declaration Regarding Non Self Govern-
ing Territories, !n Charier of United
Nationi. 185, 356 SCO, S6S SCI. 570, 467
De Gaulte, Charles. 170
Disarmament. 109, 267-269, 274. 282-283.

295-329. 424. 432, 456. 471
Domestic jurisdiction, 161, 164, 166, 101-
191.359.467
Donne. John. 3

Drummond. Sir Eric, 196. 193, 202, 211,
214

Dual mandate, concept of. 350-331
Dubois, Pierre, 22

Dulles. John Foster. 103. 105-106, 133.
175, 176, ISO-181

Dumbarton Oaks Conversations and
Proposals, 64. 65, 69, 143-146, 172, 301

Eagleton. Clyde, 187
Men. Anthony, 84, 201
F uhelberger, Clark, 321
F.isenhower, Dwight D , 234, 399
Elton. Lord. 116

Essentiality, rule of, in membership
questions, 96, 107. 109 110
Ethiopia, conflict with Italy, tee Italian-
Ethiopian case

European Atomic Energy Community,
453. 469

European Coal ind Steel Community,
51. 119. 123, 134.435,469
European Economic Community, 453.

469

European unity, 22, 24 23. 123. 469

Federalism. 9. 94, 159. 291. 407-432,
433-445, 471. See otto United States,
governmental and political system:
WotU government
Fleming. D. F„ 189

Fool ind Agriculture Organisation, 63,
132, 393

Functionalism, 373-402. 409. 415. 443-445,
46* -470

Geneva Protocol, 229. 272
Genocide Contention, 1J|, 399
Grey. Sit Edward. 44
Cronus. Hugo. 23

Guatemalan case, in Untied Nations. 122

Hague Confer mere (1*99, 1907). 23 34.
40. 5j 54. 1;-. (-9 r~\ 22 ( 225.

52*. 230, 2JS. 29*. 302. SUJ

Hall, 11. Duncan. 345
Hamilton, Alexander, 430
Ham trunk] old, Dag. 15, 106. 214. 463-
465

Harriman, Avereil. 84
Hitler. Adolf. 49. 87, 283. 429
Hobbes, John, 58. 220. 428-429
Hodman. Paul G.. 381, 398
House, Colonel Edward M-. 44
Hull. Cordell, 63, 71-72. 83 84, 145
Human rights, 70-71, 86-87. 89. 95. 185.
186.190.327,399

Hungarian crisis (1956), 457, 459-466

India-South Africa dispute, 122, 164,
188.246

Inquiry, international commissions of.

32. 225, 230-231, 24S. 435
Inter-American system, see Organization
of American States

Inter-Covemmcntal Maritime Consulta-
tive Organization, 469
International Atomic Energy Agency.

456. 469

International Bank for Reconstruction

and Development, 63, 134, 214, 398,
400

International Civil Aviation Organiza-
tion. 63. 132

International Court of Justice, 11, 65,
66. 69, 74. 100 102. 161-170. 185-186,
212,238 236.210 241

International Finance Corporation. 399,

469.470

International frontier, concept of, 345-

lnternational Institute of Agriculture. 39
International Labor Organization. 40.

66. 129. 132, 134, 160, 195-196, 201,
214. 374. 3*8. 393. 399. 401
International law. 21-22. 30. 60, 120,
160. 183, 225. 236. 241, 235. 406
International Monetary Fund, 63. 134
International organization: basic nature
and assumptions. 9-16. 59 61, 71-89,
408-409: considered as a process. 4. 7,
449, 469: progrevs and prospects sum-
marized. 435-450. retrospective tend-
encies. 49 56. 86 87

International Refugee Organization, 392.

398

International Telecommunication Li»
ion. 41. 66 ..

International Telegraphic Union. S3, 3 .
39.41

INDEX

534

Declaration Regarding Non-Self Govern-
ing Territories, in Charter of United
Nations. 185, 356-360, 363-364, 370. 467
De Gaulle. Charles. 170
Disarmament, 108. 267-268, 274. 282 283.

293-323,424.432,456,471
Domestic jurisdiction, 161, 164. 166, 181-
191,359,467
Donne, John, 3

Drummond. Sir Eric, 196, 198, 202, 211,
214

Dual mandate, concept of. 350-351
Dubois, Pierre, 22

Dulles. John Foster. 103, 105-106, 135.
175. 176, 180-181

Dumbarton Oaks Conversations and
Proposals, 64, 65, 69, 145-146. 172. 301

Hagleton, Clyde, 187
Eden. Anthony, 84, 201
Eichelberger, Clark. 321
Eisenhower. Dwight D., 254, 399
Elton, Lord, 116

Essentiality, rule of, in membership
questions, 96, 107, 109-110
Ethiopia, conflict with Italy, see Italian-
Ethiopian case

European Atomic Energy Community,
453. 469

European Coal and Steel Community.

51, 119, 125, 134. 435. 469
European Economic Community, 453,
469

European unity. 22,24-25, 123, 469

Federalism, 9, 94, 159. 291, 407-432.
438-445. 471. See also United States,
governmental and political system;
World government
Fleming, D. F„ 189

Food and Agriculture Organization, 63,
132. 398

Functionalism, 373-402. 409. 415, 413-415.
469-470

Geneva Protocol, 229, 272
Genocide Convention. 131, 399
Ctey, Sir Edward, 48
Cretins. Hugo, 23

Guatemalan ate, in United Nations, 122

Hague Conferences (1899. 1907). 28-34.
40. 45-46. 5J 51, 127, 129. 222. 224 225,
229. 230. 233. 29'.. 302. 301

Hall. H. Duncan, 345
Hamilton, Alexander, 430
Harnmarskjold, Dag, 15, 106, 214. 463-
465

Harriman, Averell, 84
Hitler, Adolf, 49, 87. 283. 429
Hobbes. John. 58, 220, 428-429
Hodman, Paul G., 381.398
House, Colonel Edward M, 44
Hull. Cordell, 63, 71-72. 83 84, 145
Human rights, 70 71, 86-87, 89. 95, 185,
186, 190, 327, 399

Hungarian crisis (1956), 457, 459-466

India-South Africa dispute. 122, 164.
188, 246

Inquiry, international commissions of.

32.225.250-231.243,435
Intcr-American system, see Organisation
of American States

Inter-Governmental Maritime Consulta-
tive Organuation, 469
International Atomic Energy Agency.
456, 469

International Dank for Reconstruction
and Development, 63, 134, 214, 398,

400

International Civil Aviation Organiza-
lion, 63, 132

International Court of Justice, 11. 65,
66, 69. 74. 100-102, 161-170, 185-186,
212,233 236.210 241

International Finance Corporation, 399,
469, 470

International frontier, concept of, 313-

International Institute of Agriculture, 39
International Labor Organization. 46,

66, 129, 132, 131. 166. 195-196. 201,
214, 374. 388, 393. 399, 401
International law, 21-22. 30. 60. 126.

160. 183, 225, 236. 241, 255, 466
International Monetary Fund, 63, 134
International organization: basic nature
and assumptions, 9-16, 59-61, 71-89,
408-409: considered as a process, 4. 7,
449. 469: progress and prospects sum-
marized. 433-450: retrospective tend-
encies, 49-50. 86-87

International Refugee Organization, 392,

International Telecommunication Un-
ion. 41, 66

International Telegraphic Union, 35, 3S.
39.41

INDEX

Voting. in international organizations,
tre Bloc toting; Majonta nanism: Veto

Well Street Journal, SS7
Warsaw Tact. 451, 463
Washington Confercntc (1921-22). S02
Watkins, Frederick M., 416
Wehberg, Hans, 287
Wells, II. G.. 379

Western New Guinea case, in United
Nations, 436
Westphalia, peace of, 20
Wilson, Woodrow. 41, 45. 53. 54. 55 57.
67. 93. 102. 121. 227-228. 253. 257. 270-
271, 338, 315, 317, 337, 389
Woolf, Leonard, 224

World Court, tee Internationa] Court of

537

Justice: Permanent Court of Inter-
national justice

World golem merit, ft, 10-14. 30, 41, JO-
78, 89, 115-116. 135. 251. 264. 290-291,
501. 506, 509. 407-452, 431-435, 437-445
World Health Organization. 132, 392, 397
World public opinion. 56-57, 60. 70-71,
227 228. 328. 338
Wright, Quincy. 220, 217. 421

Y.ln Conference. Of, 05. 69. 145. 319
“Yellow Peril" conctpl, 371

Zafrulla Kahn, Sir Muhammad, 373
Ziromero, Sir Alfred, 27

INDEX

=SSTSP“ lsuNFED) -'”“'

o? Arbitration, » «

Permanent Court ot International Jus- Srettmius Eduard k.. j

Permanent Court ot International jus-
tice, 46, 66, 128, 166. 182. 201, 233-236
Phillimore, Lord, 44
Potsdam Conference, 366
Potter, P. B., 286

Power politics, 13-14, 41. 55, 377, 437
Preparatory Commission, of the United
Nations, 65, 198

Public international unions, in 19th
century. 33-40, 46. 129

175, 349

Stimson Doctrine, 102
Streit, Clarence K , 115-116

19th Technical Assistance. Expanded Pro-
gram, of United Nations, 180, 390-391.
394. 469; Special Projects Fund. 46J.
470

Quadruple Alliance. 24-25 Thomas, Albert, 196 211, 214

~ r Toynbee. Arnold J„ 259

Trujillo. Jos4 V., 364

Rab.nou.tch, Eugene. 320 '

Ranshofen-Wertheimer. Egon, 196 179 180, 341-371. 467 46 .

Regionalism, 74, 95. 111-125. 453. 463.

K * U»i»d Nations: MtaM ™'“'
R.insth p.ul S SSI .ion, UW«i »>• «■«

«t. 62 89 S,« .to IitMrnational .<•

Riches, Cromwell A , 138 ganization . . scientific.

Romulo. Carlo,. 387 United Nation, Educat onal Sciend

Roosevelt. FranUm D . 64. 67, 77, 80, and Cultural Organirat.on(UNES ).

83,145,170.213.296.345 73.210,395-396.400-401,409

Rousseau. Jean Jacques. 22, 26. 168 United Nations Emergency

Rush-Bagot Agreement (1817). 295 (UNEF), 461, 463-465 R h b liu .

United Nations Relief and Rehabiuta
lion Administration, 63, 398

Saint Pierre, Abb* de. 22 United States, fovernrnental and poliU-

Salter, J A . 379 cal system. 8-9, 12-13 94 101, 132 1»

San Francisco Conference (1945). see >59, 162-163. 167, 171. 181-182 189 191.
United Nation, 219. 291.327-328. 394,399 400, 413,

Reinsch, Paul S . 381 «ion, 158-191 ; nature

Reves, Emery. 413. 421-422 of. 62 89 See also

Riches. Cromwell A , 138 ganuation

Romulo. Carlos, 387 United Nations Educs

Roosevelt, FranUm D . 64, 67, 77. 80, and Cultural Oiganiz
83, 145, 170, 213, 296, 345 73. 210, 395-396. 400-'!

Rousseau, Jean Jacques. 22. 26. 168 United Nations E

Rush-Bagot Agreement (1817), 295 (UNEF), 461, 463-465

United Nations Rebel
lion Administration,

Saint Pierre, AbW de, 22 United States, governr

Salter. J A , 379 cal system, 8-9, 12-13

San Francisco Conference (1945). see 159. 162-163.167,171
United Nations 219, 291, 327-328, .

SchlfTer, Walter, 293, 419. 432 422 428, 438 415

Schutnan, Frederick L„ 13,376 Uniting for Peace R'

Schuman Plan, see European Coal and 278 280, 460 461 . .

Steel Community Universal Postal Union, 35, 39,

Schwarrenberger, Georg, 379 134

Secretariats, international, 10. 38-39, 41, Utrecht. Treaty ot, 20
46, 51, 74, 193 215, 435, 449, 464-465
Smith, Adam, 58-59, 88 »

Smuts, Jan C„ 45, 46. 347, 388 V andenberg. Arthur

Sohn, Louis B . 431-432 Versailles, Treaty of, 4

South Africa, dispute with India, 122. Veto: in League of h
164,188,216 regional organiratu

Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, 123 in United Nations

Specialized Agencies, of United Nations 99, 100. 105-106, 13'

system. 75 76, 88 89. 109, 122, 129. 160, 245. 274, 278, 280.

180-181, 197. 202. 205, 209-210, 469. 460. traditional rul

See also Functionalism; specific agen- 39, 127-129, 131, 131

ties by title Vienna, Congress of. 2

Vandenberg. Arthur H-, 77, 85, 225

Versailles, Treaty of, 45, 72 .

in Up «!

460, traditional rule of unanimity, *
39. 127-129, 131. 133. 137. 140
Vienna, Congress of, 23-25, 43, 346

Special United Nations Fund for Eco- Vitoria, Francisco, 344

INDEX

Voting, in international organizations,
*« Bloc soling; Majoiitarianism: Veto

Wall Street Journal, SSI

Warsaw Tact, <55. <63

Washington Conference (1921-22), S02

WatVins. Frederick M., 416

Wehberg. Hans, 287

Wells, H. C.. S79

Western New Cuinea case, in United
Nations, <56
Westphalia, Peace of. 20
Wilson, Woodrow, 41, 45, 53, 54, 55-57,
67, 95. 102, 121, 227-228, 253, 257, 270-
271. 558. 515, 517. 387, 389
Woolf, Leonard, 224

World Court, tee International Court ol

5S7

Justice; Permanent Court of Inter-
national Justice

World government. 8, 10-14, 36, 41, TO-
TS, 89, 115-116, 155. 251. 264, 290-291,
501, 506, 309, 407-452, 454 455, 437-445
World Health Organization, 152, 592. 397
World public opinion. 56-57, 60. 70-71,
227-228, 328, 338
Wright, Quincy, 226. 247, 421

Yalta Conference, 64, 65. 69, 145, 349
"Yellow Peril" concept, 371

Zafrulla Kahn, Sir Muhammad, 373
Zimmern. Sir Alfred, 27

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